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BY 


JAMES M 
THE 


cCOSH, D. D., LL. D., Litt. D. 


COGNITIVE POWERS. 




I vol. i2mo, $1.50. 


THE 


MOTIVE POWERS. 




I vol. i2mo, $1.50. 



FIRST AND FUNDAMENTAL 
TRUTHS 



BEING A TREATISE ON 



METAPHYSICS 



/ 



JAMES McCOSH, D. D., LL. D., Litt. D. 

ex-president of princeton college, author of " method of divine 

government," " laws of discursive thought," '' psychology 

of the cognitive powers," psychology of the 

motive powers " " realistic 

philosophy" 





NEW YORK 

CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 

1889 






Copyright, 1889, 
Bt CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS. 



The Riverside Press, Cambridge: 
Electrotyped and Printed by H. 0. Hougtiton & Co. 



\ 






c.^-^^ 



PREFACE. 



Every thinking mind has occasion at times to refer 
to first principles. In this work I have set myself ear- 
nestly to inquire what these are ; to determine their na- 
ture, and to classify and arrange them into a science. 

In pursuing this end I have reached a Realistic Phi- 
losophy'-, opposed alike to the Sceptical Philosophy, which 
has proceeded from Hume, in England, and the Idealistic 
Philosophy, which has ramified from Kant, in Germany; 
while I have also departed from the Scottish and higher 
French Schools, as I hold resolutely that the mind, in its 
intelligent acts, begins with, and proceeds throughout, 
on a cognition of things. 

If the mind does not assume and start with things, it 
can never reach realities by any process of reasoning or 
induction. 

This work contains the results of my teaching of very 
large classes in Queen's College, Belfast, Ireland, and in 
Princeton College, America, and may be regarded as the 
cope-stone of what I have been able to do in philosophy. 

I have expounded my philosophy in the text, and put 
the historical and critical disquisitions in smaller print ; 
to be read continuously as carrying on the discussion, or 
to be reserved for reference — as my readers may find 
it best suited to accomplish the end they have in view. 

Pkinceton, N. J., February, 1889. 



CONTENTS. 



INTRODUCTION. 

PAGE 

Definition of the Science. The five Mental Sciences . . 1 
PART FIRST. 

GENERAL VIEW OF PKIMITIVE PKINCIPLES. 

CHAPTER I. 

Nature of Eiest Truths. Meaning of the terms "philosophy" 

and "philosophical "...•..... 5 

CHAPTER II. 
Threefold Aspects of Intuitive Truths. Innate Ideas . 12 

CHAPTER in. 

Tests of Intuitive Truths. Views of Aristotle, Leibnitz, Kant, 

Locke, Scottish School, Schelling, Hegel 16 

CHAPTER IV. 
Spontaneous and Reflex Use of Intuition. Kant's view . 19 

CHAPTER V. 
Sources of Error in Metaphtsical Speculation . . 22 

CHAPTER VI. 
Erroneous Views of Intuition. Locke and Kant ... 27 

CHAPTER VII. 

Legitimate Use of First Principles. The Sophists . . 31 



VI CONTENTS. 

CHAPTEK VIII. — (Supplementary.) 

Brief Critical Eeview of Opinions in regard to Intui- 
tive Truths 34 

PART SECOND. 

PARTICULAR EXAMINATION OF PRIMITIVE TRUTHS. 

BOOK I. 

Primitive Cognitions. 

CHAPTER I. 

The Mind begins its Intelligent Acts with Knowledge . .58 

CHAPTER II. 
Our Intuition op Body by the Senses. Account by Mvller. 
Cheselden case. Review of Berkeley, Kant, Hamilton, Fickte, 
Ferrier, Saisset, Locke, Spencer ....... 62 

CHAPTER III. 

Distinctions to be attended to in our Cognition of Body. 

Difficulties in sense of sight. Apparent deception of the senses. 
Views, of Eleatics, Plato, Aristotle, Stoics. Epicureans and Aca- 
demics, Augustine, Anselm, Kant, Hamilton. Sensational School 
and Brown 75 

CHAPTER IV. 
Apparent Deception of the Senses 83 

CHAPTER V. 

The Essential Qualities of Matter. Descartes and Leibnitz 

as to Space and Force ......... 85 

CHAPTER VI. 

Our Intuitive Knowledge of Self or Spirit. Critical re- 
view of views of Descartes, Locke, Buffier, The Scottish School, 
Kant, The German Pantheists, Hamilton, Mansel ... 88 

CHAPTER Vll. 

Substance. Critical review of opinions of Descartes, Spinoza, Locke, 

Berkeley, Hamilton 100 



CONTENTS. Tli 

CHAPTER Vm. 
Mode, Quality, Peopeett, Essence. View of Locke , .110 

CHAPTEE IX. 
Being 118 

CHAPTER X. 
Extension. Views of Bain, M'dller 121 

CHAPTER XL 
Number. Vieivs of Aristotle, Locke, and Huffier .... 124 

CHAPTER XII. 
Motion. Views of Aristotle, Descartes, Locke, Franz case . .126 

CHAPTER Xin. 
Power. Mill's definition of Matter and Mind criticised . , .128 

BOOK II. 

Primitive Beliefs. 

CHAPTER I. 
Their General Nature. Presentative and Representative knowl- 
edge. Views of Augustine, Avselm, Ahelard, High Church Divines. 
Puritans, Charnock, Kant, Jacobi, Hamilton , , . .130 

CHAPTER II. 

Space and Time. Lucretius, Brown, Stewart, Trendelenburg, Ham- 
ilton, Herschel, Leibnitz, Clarke, Kant . . . . . .141 

CHAPTER III. 
The Infinite. Hobbes, Locke, Hamilton, Mansel, Howe, Leibnitz . 154 

CHAPTER IV. 
Extent, Tests, and Power of our Native Beliefs • .176 

BOOK III. 

Primitive Judgments. 

CHAPTER I. 

Their General Nature and a Classification of them. Views 

of J. S. Mill, Locke, Kant, Hamilton, Bain 181 



Vlll CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER n. 

Relations Intuitively observed by the Mind. Identity, 
Comprehension, Resemblance, Space, Time, Quantity, 
Active Property, Cause and Effect. Leibnitz and Kant, 
as to Identity. Analytic Judgments regulating Logic . . . -191 

CHAPTER III. 

Particular Examination of Cause and Effect. Kant. Uni- 
formity of Nature. Criticism of Mill. Miracles . . . 207 

BOOK IV. 

Our Intuitive Moral Convictions. 

CHAPTER I. 

Their General Nature • 217 

CHAPTER n. 

Virtue with its Attached Obligations. Smith, Brown, Mack- 
intosh. Examination of Mill's Utilitarianism . . . .219 

CHAPTER III. 
Error and Sin 227 

CHAPTER IV, 
The Will, Primitive Truth in. KanVs view .... 233 

CHAPTER V. 

Relation of Moral Good and Happiness 239 

PART THIRD. 

INTUITIVE PRINCIPLES AND THE SCIENCES. 

BOOK I. 

Metaphysics. 

CHAPTER I. 

The Science Defined 244 

CHAPTER IL 
Fundamental Truth and Evolution 249 



CONTENTS. IX 

BOOK II. 

Gnosiology. 

CHAPTEE I. 

The Origin of our Knowledge and Ideas. Statement and 

criticism of Locke's views 256 

CHAPTER II. 
Limits to our Knowledge, Ideas, and Beliefs . . . 265 

CHAPTER m. 
Relation of Intuition and Experience 271 

CHAPTER IV. 
The Necessity attached to our Primary Convictions . 278 

CHAPTER v. — (Supplementary.) 

Criticism of Distinctions as to the Relation of Intuitive Reason and 

Experience 285 

BOOK III. 
Ontology. 

CHAPTER I. 
Knowing and Being . . . , 293 

CHAPTER n. 
Idealism 299 

CHAPTER in. 
Scepticism and Agnosticism. M. Morel, Ferrier, Hamilton . 309 

CHAPTER IV. — (Supplementary.) 
The Conditioned and Unconditioned . 321 

CHAPTER v. — (Supplementary.) 
The Antinomies of Kant 324 

CHAPTER VL — (Supplementary.) 
The Relativity of Knowledge 326 



X CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER VII. — (SUPPLEMBNTABT.) 

Examination of Mill's Metaphysical system 328 

CHAPTER VIII. — (SUPPLEMENTAKT.) 

The Nescience theory of Mr. Herbert Spencer 332 

BOOK IV. 

Metaphysical Principles involved in the Sciences. 

CHAPTER I. 

Metaphysics in the Practical Affairs op Life . . . 337 

CHAPTER II. 
Metaphysics of Physics. Whewell 339 

CHAPTER III. 

Metaphysics op Mathematics. Criticism of Kant, Mansel, Stew- 
art, and Mill 343 

CHAPTER IV. 
Metaphysics op Formal Logic 350 

CHAPTER V. 
Metaphysics of Ethics. Locke. . . . . . . . 352 

CHAPTER VI. 
Metaphysics op Theology . 355 



FIRST AND FUNDAMENTAL TRUTHS. 



INTRODUCTION. 

In popular apprehension Metaphysics is the most con- 
fused and confusing of all branches of inquiry. I claim 
that under one aspect it is the most certain of all de- 
partments of knowledge ; it is so in its principles, which 
are fundamental. Under another aspect it is the most 
perplexed, as it is difficult to determine these principles, 
they are so involved in the varied and complicated opera- 
tions of the mind. 

The phrase has been made to cover all sorts of specu- 
lation, attainable and unattainable, possible and impos- 
sible. Of all things, it is important at the present stage 
of the history of philosophy that it should be carefully 
defined, that a distinct province be allotted to it, and that 
it should not be allowed to trespass upon the territory 
of its neighbors. 

The term points to a branch of investigation beyond 
(/xeVa) Physics. The profound thinkers of the world 
have all believed in something in the mind deeper and 
higher than the fleeting phenomena of the senses. I am 
convinced that there are powers working which underlie 
and support all its intelligent exercises. If this be so, 
it is surely of vast moment to determine what these are. 
This is the field to be allotted to Metaphysics. 

Aristotle has remarked that Metaphysics, or what he 
calls First Philosophy, while the first of the sciences in 
the order of things, will be the last to be constructed. 



2 INTRODUCTION. 

The reason is, that these principles at the basis of all the 
higher operations of the mind are so mixed up with 
them that it is difficult to separate them and make them 
stand out distinctly to the view. But I believe that the 
associated mental exercises have now been so far extim- 
ined and ascertained that it is possible to discover and 
express the nature of the fundamental laws on which 
they stand. Since the days of Aristotle we know what 
are the laws of reasoning and of discursive thought gen- 
erally. Butler and Kant have thrown much light on the 
moral powers of man's nature. Important discoveries 
have been made as to sense-perception by physical and 
physiological research. I believe we can now furnish an 
approximately correct analysis of the varied elements 
in our emotions. With so many parts of the country 
separated and so far settled, we may allocate its place to 
the frontier province which guards the whole. 

I define Metaphysics as The Science op First and 
Fundamental Truths. I cherish the conviction that 
it may be made as clear and satisfactory as Logic, the 
science of discursive truth, has been, since the days of 
Aristotle (a). It shows us what we are entitled to 
assume and what we are not entitled to assume without 
mediate proof. It does so by opening to our view those 
primitive truths which at once claim our assent and 
furnish a sure foundation to all our knowledge ; which, 
like the primitive granite rocks, go down the deepest 
and mount the highest (5). 

(a) Five mental sciences have emerged : (1.) Psychology, 
which observes the operations of the mind generally, with the view 
of discovering their laws. (2.) Logic, the science of Discursive 
Thought, in which we proceed from what is given or allowed to 
what is drawn from it. (3.) Ethics, the science of our Moral 
Nature. (4.) ^Esthetics, which treats of the feelings raised by the 



INTRODUCTION. 3 

Beautiful, the Picturesque, the Ludicrous, and the Sublime. (5.) 
Metaphysics, the science of First Truths. This gives a determi- 
nate (a phrase of Locke's) place to Metaphysics. 

(b) I am so old as to remember how much service was done to 
Formal Logic among English-speaking people when Whately, and 
Hamilton who searchingly examined him, insisted on keeping the 
science within a definite field, instead of allowing it to wander among 
all sorts of topics, practical and unpractical, bearing on thinking. A 
like benefit may be conferred on Metaphysics by confining it within 
rigid boundaries, instead of attempting to settle (often only to un- 
settle) all questions regarding God, the World, and the Soul. 



PART FIRST. 

GENERAL VIEW OF PR!mITIVE PRINCIPLES. 



CHAPTER I. 

NATIJEE OF FIEST TRUTHS. 
I. 

Theee are Objects, there are Truths, which are per- 
ceived Directly and Immediately ; this is not the case 
with the great body of our knowledge. Most of what 
we know is acquired by a process of induction, that is 
gathered observation, or of reasoning. It is not by di- 
rect observation, but by testimony, that those of us who 
have not been in China believe that there is such a 
country. It is not by immediate perception, but by rea- 
soning, that we know that the angles of a triangle are to- 
gether equal to two right angles. But there are truths 
which are seen at once on the bare inspection of the 
objects. We know ourselves directly as existing in pleas- 
ure or in pain, as thinking or feeling. We know that 
the self of to-day in joy is the same as the self of yes- 
terday in sorrow. On the bare contemplation of these 
two straight lines we perceive that they cannot enclose 
a space, and on a surface being presented to us, that the 
shortest distance between these two points in it is a 
straight line. In order to convince us of these and in- 
numerable such truths, we need no gathered experience* 
and we make no use of inference. 



6 GENERAL VIEW OF PRIMITIVE PRINCIPLES. 

The power, or rather the powers," for they are many 
and varied, which are percipient of these objects and 
truths are called Intuitive. The truths thus discovered 
are Primitive; they are perceived at once. They are 
also Fundamental ; other truths are built upon them, 
and to us, however they m^y stand to other intelligences, 
they need nothing extraneous to sustain them. The body 
of such truths constitutes Metaphysics, or what may be 
called Metaphysical Philosophy, which is the deepest of 
all Philosophy. 

II. 

Our Intuitions look to " Things" and the Relations 
of Things. They are regarded by us as Real. These 
phrases need no definition ; we know their meaning at 
once. Knowledge implies things known. We assume 
them as existences. We proceed upon them. We may 
not know the full nature of the things, but we know so 
much of them. We know ourselves as thinking, or in 
a state of feeling. We know that body as spreading out 
an extended surface before us, or as resisting our energy. 

We farther on decide as to these two straight lines* 
that if they proceed one inch without coming nearer one 
another, they will not, however far prolonged, approach 
each other more closely. We discover relations between 
these and other truths. Proceeding on these as prem- 
ises, we draw conclusions from them. The original ob- 
jects being real, all that is drawn from them by logical 
inference is also real. Beginning with a world of reali- 
ties, we may continue in it all along, wandering at times, 
as fancy leads us, into an ideal world, but knowing it all 
the while to be ideal, and ever ready to return to the 
real world to stay and stablish ourselves. 

The philosophy which assumes and proceeds upon the 
reality of things may be called a Realistic Philoso- 



NATURE OF FIRST TRUTHS. 7 

PHY. I am convinced that in the end this will be 
acknowledged as the true philosophy, and will set aside 
the Sceptical Philosophy, which denies the reality of 
things, and the Agnostic Philosophy, which affirms (as 
the only thing it knows) that we cannot know things, 
and the Idealistic Philosophy, whicli adds to things out of 
the stores of the mind, with the view of improving them. 
In a crude, uncritical shape, this was the first philosophy ; 
and when duly constructed, with the help of the necessary 
"rejections and exclusions," it will be the final philoso- 
phy. It will be found, as we advance, that Metaphysical 
Philosophy has two offices to discharge: one to consider 
our Intuitions, and the other the things at whicli intui- 
tion looks. 

in. 

Our Intuitions look to Single Objects, and not to ab- 
stract or general notions. A very different account is 
often given, if not formally, at least implicitly, of intu- 
ition or of intuitive reason, by those who believe in it. 
Man is represented as gazing immediately on the true, 
the beautiful, the good, meaning in the abstract or in 
the general. It is admitted that there must be some 
sort of experience, some individual object presented as 
the occasion ; but the mind, being thus roused into ac- 
tivity, is represented as contemplating, by direct vision, 
such things as space and time, substance and quality, 
cause and effect, the infinite and moral good. I hope 
to be able to show that this theory is altogether mis- 
taken. Our appeal on this subject must be to the con- 
sciousness and the memory, and these give a very dif- 
ferent account of the process which passes through the 
mind when it is employed about such objects. Intui- 
tively the mind contemplates a particular bod}'^ as occu- 
pying space and being in space, and it is by a subsequent 



8 GENERAL VIEW OF PRIMITIVE PRINCIPLES. 

intellectual process, in which abstraction acts an impor- 
tant part, that the idea of space is formed. Intuitively 
the mind contemplates an event as happening in time, 
and then by a further process arrives at the notion of 
time. The mind has not intuitively an idea of cause or 
causation in the abstract, but discovering a given effect, 
it looks for a specific cause. It does not form some sort 
of a vague notion of a general infinite, but fixing its 
attention on some individual thing, — such as space, or 
time, or God, — it is constrained to believe it to be 
infinite. The child has not formed to itself a refined 
idea of moral good, but contemplating a given action, it 
proclaims it to be good or evil. 

IV. 

We can Generalize our Intuitions, and thus form Phil- 
osophic Principles, It is not necessary, in order to the 
action of our Intuitions, that we should study their na- 
ture as metaphysicians do. Like the physiological pro- 
cesses of the body, S2ij in breathing and digestion, they 
act best when we take no notice of them. An ofiicious 
intermeddling with them may tend rather to disturb 
their action. But the physiologist in constructing his 
science has carefully to observe the action of our frame 
when we are looking at objects, or when we breathe. 
So the metaphysician has carefully to watch the actions 
of our various intuitions, in order to discover their na- 
ture and their laws. 

The native principles of the mind act, as physical laws 
do, at all times, and whether we observe them or not. 
The laws of the material world are discovered by the 
observation and generalization of their individual opera, 
tions. It is in much the same way that we find out the 
laws of our original and native convictions. I boldly 



NATURE OF FIRST TRUTHS. 9 

affirm tliat it is as impossible to determine these as it is 
to ascertain the laws of the external universe, by a jjriori 
cogitation or logical inference. As they cannot be elabo- 
rated by speculation on the one hand, so they do not, 
on the other, as regulative principles, fall under the im- 
mediate notice of consciousness; all that we are conscious 
of are the individual exercises. But examining carefully 
the nature of the acts, we generalize them, and thus find 
the precise law of the principle, and embody it in a ver- 
bal expression. 

The principle thus discovered is a philosophic one ; it 
is a truth above sense, a truth of mind, a truth of rea- 
son. It is different in its origin and authority from the 
general laws reached by experience, such as the laws of 
gravitation or chemical affinity. These latter are the 
mere generalizations of our experience, which are neces- 
sarily limited; they hold merely to the extent of our 
experience, and as experience cannot reach all possible 
cases we can never say that there may not be excep- 
tions. Laws of the former kind are of a higher and 
deeper nature; they are generalizations of intuitive con- 
victions, carrying necessity and consequent universality 
in their nature. They are truths of our original nature, 
having the sanction of Him who hath given us our con- 
stitution and graven them there with his own finger. 
These general maxims constitute metaphysics. All pro- 
posed metaphysical philosophy should aim at being the 
expression of our intuitions in the form of general laws. 
We shall see that the generalizations may be inaccu- 
rately made, and almost all the numerous errors of the 
common metaphysics proceed from this cause; they are 
to be corrected by properly drawing the law out of the 
individual operations. When this is done, we have meta- 
physical philosophy. 



10 GENERAL VIEW OF PRIMITIVE PRINCIPLES. 

THe term " Philosophy " has not had a very distinct meaning for 
the last two or three ages. It should always be carefully distin- 
guished from Science, which generalizes the scattered operations of 
nature into laws. Perhaps it may most appropriately be defined as 
the inquiry into the first principles of things, and then the philoso- 
pher will be one who conducts the inquiry. The adjective " philo- 
sophical " may be applied to all branches which inquire into the first 
principles of the department discussed. Metaphysical Philosophy, 
or simply Metaphysics, has a clear and distinct province allowed 
when it is understood as being a search for the fundamental princi- 
ples of our mental operations. 

V. 

Induction, by which is meant a Gathered and Sys- 
tematic Observation, has a place in Metaphysics. This 
will seem to many an extraordinary position. It will 
be regarded by them as stripping philosophy of its 
crown and sceptre which place it above all the ordinary 
sciences. It seems to make our deeper thinking to have 
no other foundation than human observation, which 
must necessarily be limited. Now, I wish it to be under- 
stood that I do not propose to rest fundamental truths 
upon our taking notice of them. These exist whether 
we observe them or not. My eye does not create that 
mountain as it looks upon it. The mountain stands 
there on its own foundation, and all that my eye does 
is to discover it. So it is with primitive truth : it rests 
on its own basis; it has its authority within itself; all 
that our observation has to do is to discern it, and find 
out what is its nature. 

If we would find what intuition is, we must carefully 
inspect it; not, indeed, by the external senses, which 
cannot perceive it, but by the internal sense, that is 
self-consciousness. Not only so, but we must seek in a 
scientific manner to find out the objects which it looks 
at and makes known to us. In short, we have to con- 



NATURE OF FIRST TRUTHS, 11 

struct the science of metaphysics by a process of induc- 
tive observation suited to the nature of the mental 
phenomena which are observed. Without such a care- 
ful inspection our metaphysics would certainly fall into 
error, being sometimes extravagant, at other times de- 
fective, and at all times confused. But as we proceed 
by internal observation, we shall discover truths which 
go down deeper and rise higher than those of physics. 
As we advance, we shall see that there is a fundamen- 
tal difference between the generalizations of our intui- 
tive convictions and those of the ordinary facts of expe- 
rience. 



CHAPTER II. 

THREEFOLD ASPECTS OF INTUITIVE TRUTHS. 



They are Perceptions looking directly at Things. 
We perceive body within our frame, or beyond it, by 
the senses. We perceive self or mind in its present 
state, whatever that happens to be, by self-consciousness. 
We find each of two sticks to be equal to a third stick, 
and we at once decide that they are equal one to the 
other without measuring them. We are told of a boy 
telling the truth when it might have saved him from 
punishment to tell a lie, and we declare the act to be 
good. 

Under this aspect the intuitions are before the con- 
sciousness. We feel them working. We know what 
the operations are. In this view they are called intui- 
tions, primitive perceptions, native convictions, and, 
more loosely, innate ideas, beliefs, and judgments. 

II. 

They are Regulative Laws or Principles guiding the 
mind. Under this aspect they are not before the con- 
sciousness till they come into exercise as perceptions. But 
perceptions come forth so constantly and are so uniform 
in their nature that they imply a law or power in the 
mind from which they proceed. This lies deep down in 
the mind, is indeed of the very essence of the mind, and 
is abiding; it abides as long as the mind abides, and is 
ever ready to act on the objects to which it refers pre- 
senting themselves. 



THREEFOLD ASPECTS OF INTUITIVE TRUTHS. 13 

To illustrate this : The senses do not perceive the 
law of gravitation, they only see its acts ; but the power 
is there in all body, and is ever acting. So it is with 
our intuitions: we are not conscious of them as prin- 
ciples. We are conscious of their exercises, and argue 
that there must be internal laws which regulate them. 
Under this aspect they may be compared to seeds send- 
ing unseen roots downwards, and bearing branches 
and branchlets, leaves and fruit, upwards. They are 
often spoken of as latent, but ready to appear. The 
full truth was enunciated by Aristotle (Z)e Anim. III. 4), 
Plato had spoken of the soul as voiyros tottos, — the place 
of intelligence. Adopting this view, Aristotle calls the 
soul the depository of principles which are not in action, 
but in capacity, ovre cvreXe^eta aAA.a 8vvd[jieL to, €t'S?;. In 
this view they are in all men. It may be no easy work 
to enunciate them, but they are ruling in the mind. It 
has been found very difficult to state precisely the law 
of cause and effect, but all human beings, including 
children and savages, act upon it. 

So considered, our intuitions are properly characterized 
as first principles, fundamental laws of thought and be- 
lief, innate truths, a priori truths. 

m. 

They may take the form of Maxims or Axioms. So 
viewed, they are formed from our primitive perceptions, 
by a process of abstraction and generalization. We have 
the best examples of this in the axioms (/cotj/at ewoiai) of 
Euclid, and in the commandments of the moral law, such 
as the Decalogue and the Sermon on the Mount. 

In this form they are not known by all men. Of the 
millions of people on the earth, including infants, chil- 
dren, savages, and the uneducated masses, there are 



14 GENERAL VIEW OF PRIMITIVE PRINCIPLES. 

compai-atively few who fashion or employ such general- 
ized principles. We do not need them to be so formu- 
lated in order to act upon them. Every human being, 
if he sees an object before him, say a house, will refuse 
his assent to the assertion that it does not exist; but 
how few beyond the limited circle of professed meta- 
physicians and logicians have consciously before them 
the principle that " it is impossible for the same thing 
to be and not to be at the same time ! " 

Under this aspect they are properly designated as 

KOLval evvoMt, TTpwrat euvoiaL, irpHJTa (xOTJixaTa, naturSB judlCia, 

maxims and axioms. 

IV. 

These are only diverse aspects of the fundamental 
powers of human intelligence. They constitute a phil- 
osophic trinity, one in three and three in one. They 
appear first in consciousness as primary perceptions 
which look immediately on things. These imply princi- 
ples which lead to the perceptions. The perceptions 
may be generalized and enunciated as laws. Till this is 
done they cannot be used in metaphysics considered as a 
science, or as philosophic principles. Under the second 
aspect they are in all men at all times, but they are not 
immediately perceived by the internal sense, and their 
nature cannot be made known to us except by careful 
observation of the acts, followed by abstraction and gen- 
eralization. As generalized maxims they may be used 
as philosophic principles, but as such they are known 
only to a few, and they can be employed in discussion 
only when their law has been gathered by induction and 
properly expressed. While there should be no disputes 
as to the immediate convictions, there may be legitimate 
discussion as to whether they have been correctly gener- 
alized into axioms. 



THREEFOLD ASPECTS OF INTUITIVE TRUTHS. 15 

In order to avoid confusion and the mistakes which 
proceed from confusion, it is essential that we go around 
these three sides of the shield, that we carefully distin- 
guish them and read the inscription on each. Any one 
neglecting to do this will be liable to affirm of intuition 
under one aspect what is true of it only under another, 
and to turn the wrong side towards the weapons of the 
assailant and keep the wrong side towards himself. It 
could be shown that many of the errors in metaphysics, 
both in its affirmations and denials, arise from looking 
at one or at only two of these aspects instead of looking 
at the whole. Most authors have not carefully noticed 
the difference between primitive perceptions which are 
singular and maxims which are universal. Locke looked 
upon them as ideas or perceptions in consciousness, and 
easily showed that they are not innate. 

The grand philosophic question discussed in the ages of Descartes, 
1599-1G50, and Locke, 1632-1704, was, Are there innate ideas ? 
Descartes (and Herbert of Cherbury, 1581-1618) affirmed and 
Locke denied the existence of such ideas. The discussion was a 
confused one owing to the use of the word idea. Certain negative 
principles may be laid down. There are no innate ideas in the 
sense I. of images or phantasms, say of a good God or a good man; 
nor IL of an abstract or general notion, such as goodness or the good; 
nor ni. of forms imposed on things by the mind, as was maintained 
by Kant. See the subject discussed in "Intuitions of the Mind," Part 
First, Book L Chap. I. It is the aim of this treatise to show in 
what sense or senses there are intuitions in the mind. 



CHAPTER III. 

TESTS OF INTUITIVE TRUTHS. 



The truths discovered at once by looking at things 
are called Intuitive. But how are we to know such 
truths, and distinguish them from other truths of obser- 
vation or inference, or from propositions which are false ? 
Are we entitled to appeal when we please, and as we 
please, to supposed infallible principles? Have we the 
privilege, when we are determined to adhere to a favorite 
opinion, to declare that we see it, that we feel it, to be 
true, and thus get rid of all objections, and even of the 
necessity of instituting an examination? When hard 
pressed in argument, may -we fall back on an original 
conviction which we assume without evidence, and de- 
clare to be beyond the power of refutation ? I believe 
we can furnish decisive tests of fundamental truths. 

JL 

Self-evidence is the Primary Mark of intuitive truth. 
It is evident on the bare inspection of the object. We 
perceive it to be so and so ; we see it to be so at 
once without requiring any foreign evidence or mediate 
proof. That the planet Mars is inhabited, or that it is 
not, is not a first truth, is not a primitive truth, for it 
is not evident on the bare contemplation of the planet. 
That the isle of Madagascar is inhabited, though a truth, 
is not a primary truth ; we believe it on secondary tes- 
timony. Nay, that the three angles of a triangle are 



TESTS OF INTUITIVE TRUTHS. 17 

together equal to two right angles is not seen to be true 
at once ; it needs other truths coming between to prove 
it. Bat that there is an extended object before me when 
I look at a wall or a table ; that I who look at the object 
exist ; that two marbles added to two marbles here are 
equal in number to two marbles added to two marbles 
there, — these are truths seen to be true on the bare 
contemplation of the things, and need no extraneous con- 
sideration to establish them. 

III. 

Necessity is a Secondary Mark. I must give my 
assent to the proposition, if I understand it. I cannot 
be made to believe the opposite. When a proposition is 
self-evident, necessity always attaches to our conviction 
regarding it. I am not inclined to fix on this as the 
original or essential characteristic. I shrink from main- 
taining that a proposition is true because it must be 
believed. A proposition is true as being true, and cer- 
tain truths are seen by us to be self evidently true. I 
would not ground the evidence on the necessity of the 
belief : I would ascribe the irresistibility of the convic- 
tion to the self-evidence. 

IV. 

Catholicity, or universality of belief, is a Tertiary 
Test, that is, the conviction is entertained by all men 
when the objects are presented to the mind and appre- 
hended. I am not disposed to use this, which has often 
been done, as the primary test. For in the first place it 
is not easy to determine in every case what propositions 
may claim the common consent of humanity. Even 
though this could be determined, it might be urged in 
the second place that this proves, not that the truth is 



18 GENERAL VIEW OF PRIMITIVE PRINCIPLES. 

necessary, but simply that it is native. Catholicity con- 
joined with necessity may settle very readily and au- 
thoritatively whether a truth is fundamental. 

But it is necessary to explain that these tests apply 
directly to intuitions only under the aspect of Perceptions. 
As the Regulative principles are not under the view 
of consciousness, it is only by noticing and generalizing 
our perceptions that we can know what these Regulative 
principles are. Again, there is a process of generaliza- 
tion implied in all axioms, and this process is not intui- 
tive. The tests apply to the regulative principles, and 
the axioms only so far as they have been properly drawn 
from the perceptions, which, I may remark, is the most 
important and difficult task which Metaphysics has to 
undertake. We are beginning to get a glimpse of the 
way in which errors, as they so often do, enter into 
philosophic speculation. 

Aristotle fixes on each of these three tests, and puts tliem in vari- 
ous forms, but does not systematically arrange them as I have tried 
to do. He fixes on self-evidence and independence as marks of 
what he calls first truths and principles. He speaks of their being 
necessary principles, and of these being inherent in things. He 
appeals to Catholic consent, adding that they who reject this faith 
will find nothing more trustworthy. Leibnitz dwells on Necessity as 
the test. Kant joined to this universality. Locke allows us no in- 
tuition of things, but gives us an intuition of the relation of ideas, 
and the test of this is self-evidence. The Scottish School of Reid 
and Stewart appeals constantly to the principles above enunciated, 
but they do not enunciate them definitely, or distinguish between 
them. Schelling's appeal is to intuition (Anschauung). Hegel's is 
to reason. (See Supplementary Chapter appended to Part L of 
this work.) 



CHAPTER IV. 

THE SPONTANEOUS AND BEFLEX USE OE INTUITION. 

Feom the account which has been given of the Intui- 
tions, it appears that they may operate — indeed, they 
are ever operating — of their own accord, and without 
our prompting them into exercise by any voluntary act; 
and it appears, too, that we may generalize the indi- 
vidual actings, discover the rule of their operation, and 
then proceed to use them in deduction and in specula- 
tion. The former of these may be called the Spontane- 
ous Action, and the latter the Reflex Application of the 
Intuitions. In their spontaneous exercise they are reg- 
ulating principles, regulating thought and belief, and 
operating whether we observe them or no. But in this 
operation our convictions all relate to singulars, and so 
cannot be directly used in philosophic speculation. In 
order to their scientific application, there is need of care- 
ful reflex observation and generalization. 

The intuition in its reflex abstract or general form is 
derived from and is best tested by the concrete spontane- 
ous conviction. In order to the formation of the defini- 
tion or axiom, we must have objects or examples before 
us. In all circumstances the most decisive means of 
testing logical and metaphysical principle is by the appli- 
cation of it to actual cases, which should be as numerous 
and varied as possible. It is when appropriate examples 
are before us that we are able to appreciate the meaning 
of the general formulae (a). It is only when we have 
considered them in their application to a number of 
diversified instances that we are in circumstances to pro- 



20 GENERAL VIEW OF PRIMITIVE PRINCIPLES. 

nounce them to be probably, approximately, or alto- 
gether correct. 

In their spontaneous action the intuitions never err, 
properly speaking ; but there may be manifold mistakes 
lurking in their reflex form and application, I have used 
the qualified language that, properly speaking, they do not 
err in their original impulses ; but even here they may 
carry error with them. They look to a representation 
given them, and this representation may be erroneous, 
and error will appear in the result. The mind intui- 
tively declares that on a real quality presenting itself, it 
must imply a substance ; but what is not truly a quality 
may be represented as a quality, and then it is declared 
that this quality implies a substance. Thus Sir Isaac 
Newton and Dr. S. Clarke represented time and space as 
qualities (which I regard as a mistake), and then repre- 
sented reason as guaranteeing that these qualities im- 
plied a substance in which they inhere, which is God. 
But the error in such cases cannot legitimately be 
charged on the intuition, which is exercised simply in 
regard to the presentation or representation made to it. 
But there is room for innumerable errors creeping into 
the abstract or general enunciation, and the scientific 
application of it. For we may have made a most defec- 
tive, or exaggerated, or totally inaccurate abstraction or 
generalization of the formula out of the individual exer- 
cises, or we may employ it in cases to which it has no 
legitimate reference. From such causes as these have 
sprung those ovei'sights, exaggerations, and not unfre- 
quently glaring and pernicious errors, which have ap- 
peared in every form of metaphysical speculation. 

(a) Kant has laid down a very different maxim, declaring that ex- 
amples only injure the understanding in respect of the correctness 
and precision of the apprehension. Speaking of examples : " Denn 



THE SPONTANEOUS AND REFLEX USE OF INTUITION. 21 

was die Richtigkeit und Pracision der Verstandeseinsicht betriift, so 
thun sie derselbea vielmehr gemeiniglich einigen Abbruch, well sie 
nur selten die Bedingung der Regel adaquat erfiillen (als casus in 
terminis), und iiberdies diejenige Anstrengung des Verstandes oft- 
mals schw'achen, Regeln im AUgemeinen, und unabhangig von den 
besonderen Umstandea der Erfabrung, nacb ibrer Zuliinglicbkeit, 
einzuseben, und sie daber zuletzt mebr wie Formeln, als Grundsatze, 
zu gebraucben angewobnen " (Krit. d. r. V. Trans. Log. p. 119; 
Kosen.). Tbis sbows tbat Kant bad no correct idea of tbe way in 
wbicb the general rule is reacbed. Tbe sanae view is evidently 
taken by many of the formal logicians of our day. 



CHAPTER V. 

SOUECES OF EKEOR IN METAPHYSICAL SPECULATION. 

All proposed metaphysical principles are attempted 
expressions of the intuitions in the form of a general law. 
Now, error may at times spring from the assumption 
of a principle which has no existence whatever in the 
human mind. I am persuaded, however, that the mis- 
takes thus originated are comparatively few, and are 
seldom followed by serious consequences. In regard to 
the assumption of totally imaginary principles, I am 
convinced that there have been fewer blunders in meta- 
physical than in physical science. As the intuitions of 
the mind are working in every man's bosom, it will 
seldom happen that the speculator can set out with a 
principle which has no existence whatever ; and should 
he so venture, he would certainly meet with little re- 
sponse. It is possible also for error to arise from a chain 
of erroneous deduction from principles which are gen- 
uine in themselves and soundly interpreted. The mis- 
takes springing from this quarter are likewise, I believe, 
few and trifling, the more so that those who draw such 
inferences are generally men of powerful logical mind, 
and not likely to commit errors in reasoning ; and if they 
do, those who have ability to follow them would be 
sure to detect them. By far the most copious source of 
aberration in philosophic speculation is to be found in 
the imperfect, or exaggerated, or mutilated expression of 
principles which really have a place in our constitution. 
In such cases the presence of the real metal gives cur- 
rency to the dross which is mixed with it. 



SOURCES OF ERROR IN METAPHYSICAL SPECULATION. 23 

In regard to many of our intuitions, the gathering of 
the common quality out of the concrete and individual 
manifestations is as subtle a work as the human under- 
standing can be engaged in. This arises from the recon- 
dite, the complicated, and fugitive nature of the mental 
states from which they must be drawn. But from the 
very commencement of speculation and the breaking out 
of discussion, attempts have been made to give a body 
and a form to the native convictions. It is seldom that 
the account is altogether illusory ; most commonly there 
is a basis of fact to set off the fiction. But the princi- 
ple is seen and represented only under one aspect, while 
others are left out of sight. It often happens that those 
whose intuitions are the strongest and the liveliest are of 
all men the least qualified to examine and generalize 
them, and should they be tempted to embody them in 
propositions, they will be sure to take distorted, perhaps 
erroneous, forms. In all departments of speculation, met- 
aphysical, ethical, and theological, we meet with persons 
whose faith is strong, whose sentiments are fervent, and 
whose very reason is far-seeing, but whose creed — that 
is, formalized doctrine — is extravagant, or even peri- 
lously wrong. In other cases the conviction, genuine in 
itself, is put forth in a mutilated shape by prejudiced 
men to support a favorite doctrine, or by party men to 
get rid of a formidable objection. 

The human mind is impelled by an intellectual crav- 
ing, and by the circumstances in which it is placed, to 
be ever generalizing, and this in respect both of material 
and mental phenomena. But the earliest classes and 
systems, even those of them made for scientific pur- 
poses, are commonly of a very crude character. Such 
laws as these have been laid down : " Nature abhors a 
vacuum ; " " Some bodies are naturally light, and others 



24 GENERAL VIEW OF PEIMITIVE PRINCIPLES. 

heavy ; " " Combustible bodies are cliemically composed 
of a base with phlogiston combined ; " " The organs of 
the flower are transformed leaves." 

These are examples from physical science. Meta- 
physical science, from the subtle and intertwined nature 
of the phenomena, can furnish far more numerous in- 
stances. In mental philosophy the general statements 
have commonly a genuine fact, but mixed with this 
there is often an alloy. The error may not influence 
the spontaneous action of the primitive principle, but it 
may tell disastrously or ludicrously in the reflex applica- 
tion. It may not even exercise any prejudicial influence 
in certain departments of investigation, but in other 
walks it may work endless confusion, or land in conse- 
quences fitted to sap the very foundations of morality 
and religion. Take the distinction drawn, in some form, 
by most civilized languages between the head and the 
heart. The distinction embodies a great truth, and 
when used in conversation or popular discourse it can 
conduct to no evil. But it cannot be carried out psy- 
chologically. For in each a number of very distinct 
faculties are included. Under the phrase " lieart," in 
particular, are covered powers with wide diversities of 
function, such as the conscience, the emotions, and the 
will. The question agitated in this century, whether 
religion be an affair of the head or the heart, has come 
to be a hopelessly perplexed one, because the offices of 
the powers embraced under each are diverse, and run 
into each other ; and certain of the positions taken up 
are, to say the least of it, perilous : as when it is said 
that religion resides exclusively in the heart, and persons 
understand that it is a matter of mere emotion, omitting 
understanding, will, and conscience, which have equally 
a part to play. Of the same description is the distinc- 



SOURCES OF ERROR IN METAPHYSICAL SPECULATION. 25 

tion between the reason and the understanding. It 
points to a reality. There is a distinction between rea- 
son in its primary, and reason in its secondary, or logical, 
exercises, and the mind can rise, always, however, by a 
process in which the logical understanding is employed, 
to the discovery of universal and necessary truth. But 
each of the divisions, the reason and the understanding, 
comprises powers which run into the other. This dis- 
tinction is at the best confusing, and it is often so stated 
as to imply that the reason, without the use of the 
understanding processes of abstraction and generaliza- 
tion, can rise to the contemplation of the true, the beau- 
tiful, and the good. Almost all metaphysical errors 
have proceeded from the improper formalization of prin- 
ciples which are real laws of our constitution. When 
presented in a mutilated shape, even truth may lead to 
hideous consequences. Suppose that the law of cause 
and effect be put in the form that " every thing has a 
cause," it will issue logically in the conclusion that God 
himself must have a cause. This consequence can be 
avoided only by the proper enunciation of the law that 
" every thing that begins to be has a cause." 

There is another circumstance to be taken into ac- 
count by those who would unfold the theory of the 
metaphysician's extravagances ; he is not restrained, as 
the physical investigator is, by stubborn facts, nor 
checked, as the commercial man is, by stern realities, 
which he dare not despise. He has only to mount into 
a region of pure (or rather, I should say, cloudy) specu- 
lation, to find himself in circumstances to cleave his way 
without meeting with any felt barrier. At the same time 
one might have reasonably expected that when such 
speculators as Spinoza, Fichte, Schelling, and Hegel 
felt themselves rushing headlong against all acknowl- 



26 GENERAL VIEW OF PRIMITIVE PRINCIPLES. 

edged truth, they would have suspected that there was 
something wrong in the assumptions with which they set 
out and in the method which they followed. Whenever 
metaphysical assumptions or speculations run counter 
to the established truths of physical science ; whenever 
they lead to the denial of the distinction between good 
and evil, or the personality of the soul, or of the exist- 
ence, of the personality, and continual providence of God, 
it is time to review the process by which they have been 
gained, for they are running counter to truths which 
have too deep a foundation to be moved by doubtful 
speculations. The remark of Bacon as to physical, may 
be applied to metaphysical, speculation, that doctrine is 
to be tried (not valued, however) by fruits : "Of all 
signs there is none more certain or worthy than that of 
the fruits produced ; for the fruits and effects are sure- 
ties and vouchers, as it were, for philosophy." " In the 
same manner as we are cautioned by religion to show 
our faith by our works, we may freely apply the prin- 
ciple to philosophy, and judge of it by its works, ac- 
counting that to be futile which is unproductive, and 
still more, if instead of grapes and olives it yield but the 
thistles and thorns of dispute and contention." 



CHAPTER VI. 

EBEONEOUS VIEWS OF INTUITION. 



They are spoken of as Instincts. By instinct animals 
perform acts of the meaning of which they are ignorant. 
Some of them lay up food in summer for nourishment 
in winter, of which they can have only an imperfect 
idea. Our intuitive perceptions are sometimes supposed 
to be much of the same character. And no doubt they 
are so, inasmuch as both are native and original. But 
they differ in a most essential point. Instincts are blind, 
not perceiving the signification of the acts which they 
perform. On the other hand, intuitions are cognitive, 
furnishing the deepest, the most certain, and properly 
understood, the clearest of all our knowledge. 

11. 

They are regarded as of the nature of Loose Beliefs 
which we have no decisive evidence to support, very 
much like the persuasion we are apt to cherish that the 
planets are inhabited. Under this view they would be 
a weakness rather than a strength in our constitution. 
It is true that the mind is capable, as we shall see, of 
entertaining primitive beliefs ; but of these we shall 
show that we have tests which are clear and certain, 
which make them entirely different from fondled fan- 
cies. Our intuitions, whether cognitions or beliefs, have 
the strongest of all evidence in their behalf. The evi- 
dence is in the objects, which we perceive as we gaze 



28 GENERAL VIEW OF PRIMITIVE PRINCIPLES. 

upon them : it is thus that we know body as extended 
and mind as thinking, and believe that we cannot move 
from one place to another without passing through all 
the intermediate points. 

III. 

We are not to regard the mind as possessing a power 
of Reason looking directly on general Principles and 
Axioms. No doubt God could have so fashioned us as 
to enable us to do this. Had he so chosen he could have 
made us capable of perceiving directly the law of gravi- 
tation, and other powers in nature, but he has seen fit 
instead to give us the power of observing the individual 
operations, say the fall of an apple, and thence to rise to 
the discovery of the law. So in metaphysics we have 
only the power of individual intuition, and it is by induc- 
tion of the single operations that we rise to the discovery 
of the necessary truth. 

IV. 

It is important at this early stage to announce that I 
mean to prove as we advance that our intuitions are not 
of the nature of Forms imposed on things by the mind. 
This is the view taken by that powerful thinker Im- 
manuel Kant, who for the last century has so powerfully 
swayed philosophic thought, not only in Germany, but 
wherever in Europe or America there are reflecting 
minds. When we look on external objects we view 
them as in space and occupying space, which space is 
supposed to be superinduced upon them by the mind. 
In opposition I hold that we are so constituted as to 
behold things as they are : we behold bodies in space, 
both the bodies and the space being realities (a). 

(a) An age ago it was of all things the most important to point 
out the errors of Locke. Throughout this treatise I am opposing 



EERONEOUS VIEWS OF INTUITION. 29 

his view that all truth is gained by a gathered experience. In this 
age it is more important to point out the errors of Kant. In both 
cases there should be an acknowledgment of the great truths which 
these two profound thinkers have established. Kant errs, I., in 
proceeding in the Critical instead of the Inductive method. He errs, 
II., in holding that we know merely Phenomena in the sense of Ap- 
pearances and not Things. He errs. III., in maintaining that the 
mind knows things, not as they are, but under Forms which we im- 
pose upon them. 

V. 

It is of special importance in the present day to show- 
that it is wrong to represent self-evident truths as being 
truths merely to the individual, or truths merely to man, 
or beings constituted like man. There are some who 
speak and write as if what is truth to one man might 
not be truth to another man, as if what is truth to man 
might not be truth to other intelligent beings. This 
account might be correct if the intuitive convictions 
were mere creatures of the mind, or borne in upon it by 
a blind natural impulse. But I have been laboring to 
show that our intuitions are intuitions or cognitions of 
things. They must be the same in all beings who know 
the things. In this view truth is immutable and eternal. 
It is a truth whether I perceive it or not, whether other 
intelligences perceive it or not. It is a truth to me be- 
cause I am so constituted as to know things. It is a 
truth not merely to me or to you, but to all men : not 
only to all men, but to all intelligences capable of know- 
ing the things. That two straight lines cannot inclose a 
space is a truth at all times and in all places, in the 
planet Mars as well as in the planet Earth. That in- 
gratitude is morally evil must hold true in all other 
worlds as in this world of ours, where sin so much 
abounds. 



30 GENERAL VIEW OF PRIMITIVE PRINCIPLES. 

- It is thus that we meet those who, like Herbert Spen- 
cer, assuming that our intuitions are developed, argue 
that their authority is thereby undermined. We show 
that however produced, they are intuitions of things. 
This is shown at the close of this volume. 



CHAPTER VII. 

LEGITI]VIATE USE OF FDiST PKINCIPLES. 



The grand aim of Metaphysics should be to construct 
a science of First Principles, that is, principles prior to 
experience, by the method of induction with self-con- 
sciousness as the agent of observation. In conducting 
this work it should first seek out these principles from 
amidst the other operations of the mind, separate them 
from these, and then determine precisely their modes 
of operation, and their laws. Throughout it should 
show what is the right application of these principles, 
and thus determine the use of Metaphysics. 

There is only one rule as to the spontaneous employ- 
ment of first principles, and this is to determine to have 
no other end in view than to discover the truth, and then 
we are sure that the intuitions will act aright. But 
there may be anxious questions as to their reflex use in 
philosophic investigation. 

II. 

When we employ them we should show by a careful 
inspection and the appropriate tests that they are first 
truths. Unless we do so we may be tempted to use the 
limited laws of experience as if they were necessary and 
universal truths. One man will say, I am sure the earth 
does not move ; I feel it to be stable. Another will tell 
you that he is not so silly as to believe in antipodes 
in which people stand with their heads downwards. A 



32 GENERAL VIEW OF PRIMITIVE PRINCIPLES. 

third emphatically affirms, I cannot believe that God 
will inflict everlasting punishment on any man, however 
wicked ; my whole nature shrinks from it. Now we have 
only to apply the tests of intuition to such assertions to 
find that we are not entitled to assume them. 

III. 

In employing first truths we should let it be known 
that we are doing so, and we should enunciate them 
accurately, at least so far as to show that we are not 
making an illegitimate application of them. Without 
this we may be employing an incongruous mixture of 
necessary and experiential truth, and using the first to 
impart a certainty to the other. 

IV. 

This science of Metaphysics should furnish what Kant 
says was the end he had in view in his great work, the 
" Kritik of Pure Reason," an inventory of what he called 
the a priori truths of the mind. It should seek to classify 
them judiciously, and put them under convenient heads, 
logically constructed. It would certainly be of immense 
use to have a carefully prepared summary of the various 
truths which can stand the tests of intuition, and which 
may therefore be employed in every department of in- 
quiry without the necessity of continually stopping to 
explain and defend them in the midst of a very different 
investigation or discussion. This is what is attempted 
in the Second Part of this treatise. 

It will be shown that primitive truths are involved 
even in the practical affairs of life, and in all the deeper 
sciences. Metaphysics should show how they are to be 
applied to the various branches of investigation. This 
is attempted in Part Third. 



LEGITIMATE USE OF FIRST PRINCIPLES. 33 

The author is aware that he is only beginning this 
important work. What he enunciates may be truth 
only provisionally. He feels deeply that it may admit 
of correction and improvement. What he has com- 
menced in good faith he hopes may be completed by 
others, to the great advantage not only of Metaphysics, 
but of all branches of science. 

The intuitions are 

INTELLECTUAL AND MOEAL, 
each subdivided into 
PRIMITIVE COGNITIONS, BELIEFS, AND JUDGMENTS. 

It is not easy to determine the precise philosophy of the Sophists, 
if indeed they had a philosophy. The doctrine of Heracleitus was 
that all is and is not ] that while it does come into being, it forth- 
with ceases to be. Protagoras, proceeding on this doctrine, declared, 
*7;o-l yap Ttov iravroov XPVI^'^''''^^ fxerpov dvOpccirov elvai, tuv [x\v ovtwv, &s 
eart, rwy Se /xr] ovtoiv, ws ovk ecrriv. This Socrates expounds as mean- 
ing ws oTa ixev eKaara i/xol (paiverai, roiavra fxev effriv i/xol, oTa Se <rol 
(Plato, Theoetetus, 24: Bekker). Aristotle represents Pi'otagoras as 
maintaining that ra SoKovvra irdvTo. iarlv oKriQri kolL to, ^aivhfieva. (^MetctpJi. 
Lib. III. Chap. V. : Bonitz). Again, Lib. x. Chap, vi., this koI yap 
eKflvos e(p7] irdvTCov xpTj/uaToii/ flvai fierpov &v6p(i)irov, ovQev srepov \4ywv ^ tJ) 
SoKovv iKiiarcf) tovto Kal ehai Trayiws. It will be observed that in these 
accounts there is an interpretation put on the language of Protagoras. 
But there can be no doubt that Plato, and Aristotle too, labored 
each in his own way to show, in opposition to these views, that there 
was a reality and a truth independent of the individual and of ap- 
pearance. It is an instructive circumstance that the Sensationalist 
school have reached in our day the very position of the Sophists, 
and regard it as impossible to reach independent and necessary 
truth, if indeed any such truth exists. We might expect that 
these men would seek to justify the Sophists, and disparage the 
high arguments of Plato. Cudworth, speaking of the theoretical 
universal propositions in geometry and metaphj'sics, has finely 
remarked that it is true of every one of them whenever " it is 
rightly understood by any particular mind, whatsoever and where- 
soever it be ; the truth of it is no private thing, nor relative to that 



34 GENERAL VIEW OF PRIMITIVE PRINCIPLES. 

particular mind only, but is a\r)9ts Ka6o\iK6v, ' a catholic and univer- 
sal truth,' as the Stoics speak, throughout the whole world; nay, it 
would not fail to be a truth throughout infinite worlds, if there were 
so many, to all such minds as would rightly understand it." (7m- 
mutable Morality, Book iv. Chap, v.) 



CHAPTER VII. 

(supplementary.) 

brief critical review of opinions in regard to intuitive 

TRUTHS. 

I. The Pre-Socratic Schools of Greece. — The Greek phi- 
losophers who flourished in the fifth and sixth centuries before 
Christ, if they did not exactly discuss, did, at least, start the ques- 
tion of man's native power of intuition. The Ionian School, founded 
by Thales, and continued by Anaximander, Anaximenes, and others, 
dwelling among material elements, found only the mutable and the 
fleeting; till at length it was laid down systematically by Heracleitus, 
that all things are in a state of perpetual flux, under the power of 
an ever-kindling and ever-extinguishing fire. Running to the op- 
posite extreme, the Eleatic School, of which Xenophanes, Par- 
menides, and Zeno were the most illustrious masters, appealed al- 
together from sense (aifo-^Tjiris) and opinion (5(f|a) to reason (\6yos)] 
fixed its attention on this abiding nature of things beneath all mu- 
tation ; dived into profound, but over-subtle, and often confused and 
quibbling disquisitions regarding Being ; and ended by making all 
things so fixed that change and motion became impossible. It was 
in the very midst of the collision of these sects that Socrates was 
reared. Professing to have only a practical aim in view, he yet, in 
putting down the opposition to that end, indulged in all the subtlety 
of a Greek intellect, and thus stimulated the dialectic spirit of his 
pupil Plato, who sought to harmonize the fleeting and the fixed. 

II. Plato. — It would be altogether a mistake to suppose, as 
some have done, that Plato is forever inquiring into the origin of 
ideas in the mind, like the metaphysicians who came after Descartes 
and Locke. His aim was of a character loftier and wider, but more 



CRITICAL REVIEW OF OPINIONS. 35 

unattainable by the cogitation of one thinker, or indeed by cogita- 
tion at all. Nor was it his object to discover the absolute, as if he 
had been reared in the schools of Schelling or Hegel. His grand 
aim was to discover the real (t6 w) and the abiding, amidst the illu- 
sions of sense and the mutations of things. And in following this 
end he sought prematurely to determine questions which can be 
settled only by a long course of patient induction, carried on by a 
succession of observers of the world without and the world within. 
But in the search he started many deep views of God, of man, and 
of the world, which have been established by the Bible, and by in- 
ductive mental and physical science. 1. He everywhere proceeds 
on the doctrine that man is possessed of a power of reason (\6yos, 
or vovs, or j/otjo-is) above sense, or faith, or understanding (Sidvota). 
2. This reason contemplates ideas (ISeai, or eifSij) supra-sensible, im- 
mutable, eternal, which ideas are realities. 3. He sees that there is 
a process of thought, especially of abstraction, in order to the mind 
rising to these ideas : rh ov is represented as voi)(Tei yuera x6yov vepi. 
Xriirrhv (^Tim. 29). 4. The discovery of these ideas should be the 
special aim of the philosopher, and the gazing on them the highest 
exercise of wisdom. But Plato moves above our earth like the sun, 
with so dazzling a light that we feel unable, or unwilling, to look too 
narrowly into the exact body of truth which sheds such a lustre. 1. 
He has given a wrong account of the reality in those eternal ideas, 
making them the only realities; denying reality to the objects of 
sense, except in so far as they partake of them, and seeming to make 
them independent even of the Divine Mind. 2. Under the one 
phrase "idea" he gathers an aggregate of things which require to 
be distinguished, — such as the true, the beautiful, the good, unity 
and being, natural law and moral law, the forms of objects, and 
even the universals fashioned arbitrarily by the mind. By heaping 
together and confounding all these things which should be carefully 
distinguished, he has given a grandeur to his views, but at the ex- 
pense of clearness and accuracy. 3. He does not see that ideas 
exist naturally in the mind merely in the form of laws or rules. To 
account for them he is obliged to suppose that the soul preexisted, 
and that the calling up of the ideas is a sort of reminiscence. 4. He 
does not see how the mind reaches them in their abstract, general, 
or philosophic form. He does not observe that the mind begins with 
the knowledge of particular objects, and must thence rise by induc- 
tion to generals. He thus lays himself open to the assaults, always 
acute, often just, at times captious, of Aristotle, who saw that the 



36 GENERAL VIEW OF PRIMITIVE PRINCIPLES. 

general exists in the individuals, and that it is from the singulars 
that man rises to the universals (Metaph. i. 9). 5. He attaches an 
extravagant value to the contemplation of these ideas in their ab- 
stract and general form. Overlooking the other purposes served by 
ideas, and their indissoluble connection with singulars, — forgetting 
that philosophy consists in viewing law in relation to its objects, — 
he represents the mind as in its highest exercise when it is ijazing 
upon them in their essence, formless and colorless: 'H yap axpu>tJi.a.T6s 
T€ Koi d(rx'7/ua'''i(rT0S koX ava<pi]S ovaia ovruis oiaa ^vx^s Kv^epviirt), ix.6v(f 
Qearfj v<^ xp^rat* irepX ^v rh ttis oK-qdoxJs eiriaT-i)ixr)s yevos rovrov exei rhv 
r6irov (Pkcedrus, 58). He thus prepared the way tor the extrava- 
gances of the Neoplatonist School of Plotinus and Proclus, who reck- 
oned the mind as in its loftiest state when under intuition or ecstasy 
which looks on the One and the Good, and who found, I believe, the 
gazing idle and unprofitable enough. 

ni. Akistotle. — His views, if not so grand as those of Plato, 
are much more sober and definite. He has specified most of the 
separate characteristics of intuition, but I have not been able to find 
how he reconciles his several statements. 1. He has a power, or 
faculty, called Novs, which he represents as concerned with the prin- 
ciples of thought and being : 'O vovs iarl irepl ras apx^s twv vorjTuv 
Koi tS)v ovrtav (^Mag. Mor. i. 35). Elsewhere he shows that it cannot 
be (l>p6vrj<Tis, nor cro^ia, nor eirio-r^/iT;, but vovs, which has to do with 
the principles of science: Aeiirerai vovi/ ehai twi' apx^v (Elh. Nic. vi. 
6; ed. MJchelet). 2. He fixes on self-evidence and independence as 
tests of what he calls first truths and principles. First truths are 
those whose credit is not through others, but of themselves: Eo-ti S" 
a\r)6ri fxev Kal irpcora ra fxr] Si erepwv aWa St avruv exovra riiv tticttij'* oil 
Set yap iv rals iirKTrTj/aovLKa^s apxa'is iin^7]TeT(rdoi rh 5ia ti, aW' e/cacmj*' 
Twj/ a.px<^v aiiT7]i' KaO' eavr^v elvai wiar-fiv {Top. i. 1 ; ed. Waitz.) 3. He 
fixes on necessity as a test. Thus he speaks of necessary principles, 
and of their being inherent in things: Ei ovv effrlv t) airodeiKriK^ eVio-r^/irj 
e| ayayKaio'v dpxajv {6 yap iTricraT ai, oi) SwaThv&Wus exetv),Ta5€ Ka6' avra 
virdpxoyra avayKoia rols -rrpdyfiaaiv, k. t. X. (Anal. Po.s'/. i. 6). Ta 6| 
avayKrjs ovra airXSis atSia, travra ra S' d'i'Sia ayevr^ra /col a<pBapTa (Elh. Nic. 
, vi. 3). 4. In which passage eternity is spoken of as a characteristic 
of necessary truth. 5. It is a favorite maxim with him that every- 
thing cannot be proven. He says that all science is not demon- 
strative, that the science of things immediate is undemonstrable; for 
as all demonstration is from things prior, we must, at last, arrive at 
things immediate which are not demonstrable: 'H^uers 5e <pafjiev, otfre 



CRITICAL REVIEW OF OPINIONS. . 37 

■waffav iiri(rrfin7]v airoSeiKriK^y elvat, kWa r-fjv rwv ajxeauv avairSSeiKTOv Kal 
ToSff oTi avayKoiov, <pav€p6v el yap aydyKj] /xev iiriaraaQai to TrpSrepa Ka.\ i^ 
Siv 7] airSSei^LS, IffTarai S4 irore ri S^ueira, ravr avair65eiKra avdyKt) elvai 
(Anal. Pugt. i. 3); see also i. 22, where be says there must be prin- 
ciples of detuonstration : rwv airoSel^ewv Sti ava/yicri apxas eTvai. He 
speaks of science and demonstration carrying us to intuiiion, vovs 
(lb. i. 23); see also ii. 19, where vovs is said to give principles: voCs 
iv eir) Twv apxuv. He blames those who seek for a reason of those 
things of which there is no reason: \6yov yap ^-qTovffiv wv ovk eart A6yos 
(Metaph. iii. 6). 6. He appeals to catholic consent, adding that those 
who reject this faith will find nothing more trustworthy: o yhp iraai 
SoKei, tovt' elvai (pa/iev 6 S' avaipccv TavTt\v t^v nricXTiv ov itdvv irKTrdTepa 
epei (EtJi. Nic. X. 2). 7. He draws the distinction between two 
classes of truths. We believe all things, either througli syllogism or 
from induction : airavra yap irKTrevo/xev i) 5ia crvWoyifffiov % e| iTraywyjis 
(Anal. Prior, ii. 23). To nature, the syllogism is the prior and the 
more known ; but to us, that which is through induction is the more 
palpable: iva^i /j.tv oi'v -KpiTspos Ka\ yvaipinirepos 6 Sia tov fxfcrou crvWom 
yifffj.6s, rifjuv S' ivapyetTTepos & 5ia rijs fvayuyrii (Ib.j compare Eth. Nic. 
vi. 3). In explaining this, he says that he calls " things prior and 
more knowable to us " those which are nearer to sense, and "things 
prior and more knowable simply " those which are more remote; but 
those things .which are universal belong to the most remote, and 
those which are singular, to the nearest: Ae7co 5e irphs 7i/j.as ij.ev -n-pSrepa 
Kal yvcapificoTepa TO, iyyvTfpov TTJs aicrO-fjcreoos, aTr\a)S 5e irpSrepa Ka). yvupi- 
fuirepa to -n-oppdiTepov effTi 5e woppaiTdTU fitv to Kad6\ov fidXicrra, iyyvrdrot 
8e TO KaS" eKacrra (Anal. Post. i. 2). But the question is started, How 
does the human mind, which must begin with the singulars, as better 
known to it, reach the universal ? He seems to say, in the follow- 
ing passage, we reach universal truth through induction: MavOdvo/xey 
tj iiraycoyfj ^ diroSei|ei' eCTt S' ^ /xev airSSei^is e/c rwv Kad6\ov, t] 5' eiraywyii 
4k twv Kara fiepos' aSivarou Se to Ka66\ov OecoprjcraL /j.}] 5i' iwayooyTJs, iirel 
Kal TO e| acpaipecrecos AeySfieva ecrrai St' iiraycoyris yvcvpifxa iroieTv, Sri 
VTrdpxei kKaar-f] yivei ivia, Kal el yUTj xajpitrro iffriv, ^ towvS' fKaffrov' 
eTroxfl'Jji'ai 5e /j.r] exovTas aXcxQriffiv ahvvarov twv yap Ka6^ eKaarov 7) a'lcrdrjcns' 
ov yap eVSex^Tai Aa^elv avTwv ttjv iiri(TTT}uT)v' ovre yap eK rwu Ka06\ov &vev 
iirayecyTJs, ovre 5i eTrayooyrjs avev ttjs alcrdricretas (lb. i. 18; cf. Eth. Nic. 
vi. 3). All these are important principles. But how does he recon- 
cile them? How in particular does he reconcile his doctrine that 
universals are gained by induction with his statement as to the mind 
having a vovs which looks at principles ? There are passages in his 
Metaphysics which show that such questions had been before his 



38 GENERAL VIEW OF PRIMITIVE PRINCIPLES. 

mind. The question is put whether first principles are universal, or 
as singulars of things ; and the further and most important question, 
whether they subsist in capacity or in energy, that is, whether they 
exist virtually or in act: Tlorepop at apxa^ Kad6\ov elalv fj &>s rh, KaO" 
fKaffra rZv Trpay/jLaroiv, Kal Svvdfiei ^ evepye'K} (^Melaph. ii. 1 ; ed. Bonitz). 
I have already quoted (on page 35) his declaration that the soul is 
the place of forms, not in readiness for action, but in capacity: oire 
ivTe\exeia dA.A& Swdfiei ra et^-q. In another passage he seems to an- 
swer, that those things which are predicated of individuals are first 
principles rather than the genera, but adds that it would not be easy 
to express how one should conceive these first principles: 'E/c fxtv oiv 
rohroiv fiaWov (palverai to eVl twp ar6fi(cv KaT7]yopoiifi€i/a apxal elvai rSiv 
yevwv iraKiv Se ir&s aZ Sei rairas apx^s vitoKa^elv oh pdBiov eiireiv. For this 
statement he gives reasons which lead him to the conclusion that 
the universals which are predicated of individuals are principles in 
the ratio of their universality, and that the very highest generaliza- 
tions must be emphatically principles: TV M^'' 7«P "■pxhv Se7 Kal tV 
airiav ehai irapa t^ irpdyfiara S>p o.px'fl, Kol SwacrOai elvai X'^P^C^^^'^" 
avTwv /jLoiovTOV Se ti Trapa rh KaB' eKaffrov elvai Sta ti &v tis u7roAa/3oi, ttA.^ 
8t. Ka66\ov KarriyopeiTaL Ka\ Kara irdvTwv ; aWa fjAjv, el Sia tovto, to fxaWov 
Ka66\ov juaWov Oereov apxds- Siare apxal to irpoor' &f eirjcrav yevr) (lb. ii. 
3). There are points of connection not brought out in this state- 
ment. But we are not rashly to charge Aristotle with an inconsis- 
tency. I believe that his statement as to first truths and syllogism 
and his statement as to the universality of induction are both true. 
But he has not drawn the distinction between first principles as 
forms in the mind, and as individual convictions, and as laws got by 
induction; nor has he seen how the self-evidence and necessity, 
being in the singulars, goes up into the universals when (but only 
when) the induction is properly formed. 

IV. The Stoics were the first, so far as is known, to lay down 
the principle that there is nothing in the intellect which was not pre- 
viously in the senses (see Origen, contra Celsum, Book vii.). But 
those who quote this statement often forget that the Stoics placed in 
the mind a ruling principle (vyefjioviKhv), and maintained that we have 
innate ivvolai and irpoX^eis. According to Cicero, Topica, they held 
by a notion, " insitam et ante perceptam cujusque formae cognitionem 
enodatione indigentem." Diogenes Laertius represents them as 
maintaining eo-rt 8* ri 'irp6\7i\f/is ewiva ^vo-ik^ tup Ka96\ov. These two 
doctrines of the Stoics are not inconsistent. The supposition that 
they must be so led to Brucker's criticism in Historia Critica de 



CRITICAL REVIEW OF OPINIONS. 39 

Zenone, of Lipsius' account in Manuductio ad Stoicam Philosophiam. 
It is quite conceivable that there may be a ruling principle and an 
anticipative notion in the mind, and yet that all our notions may- 
arise from sense ; only it is not true, as Locke has shown, that all 
our ideas come from sense, for many of them are derived from the 
inward sense or reflection. The Stoics represented the notions as 
" obscuras et inchoatas, adumbratas, complicatas, involutas " (Cicero, 
De Legihus ; see Lipsius, Manud. ii. 11). In Epictetus, vii. 22, we 
have examples of the Stoic preconception as that good is advan- 
tageous, eligible, and to be pursued, and that justice is fair and be- 
coming. 

V. The Epicureans are usually represented as denying every- 
thing innate. But it is quite certain that they held by a irpJAijif ty, 
as implied in all intelligence, investigation, and discussion: " Id est, 
anteceptam animo rei quandam informationem, sine qua nee intelligi 
quidquam, nee quaeri, nee disputari potest." This prolepsis gives 
a prenotion of the gods which is innate, and has in its behalf univer- 
sal consent: " Cum enim non institute aliquo, aut more, aut lege, sit 
opinio constituta, maneatque ad unum omnium firma consensio; 
intelligi necesse est, esse deos, quoniam insitas eorum, vel potius 
innatas, cognitiones habemus. De quo autem omnium natura con- 
sentit, id verum esse necesse est " (Cicero, De Nat. Deorum, i. 17). 

VI. Lord Herbert of Cherbury is an original but by no 
means a clear thinker; he is certainly not a graceful writer. In his 
treatise De Veriiate, he maintains that truth is discoverable in conse- 
quence of there being an analogy of things to our minds. He finds 
in the soul four faculties : 1. Natural Instinct, — " sive sensus qui 
ex facultatibus communes notitias confirmantibus oritur." 2. The 
Internal Sense. 3. The External Sense; and 4. The Discursive 
Power. Whatever is not revealed through these faculties cannot be 
known by man, but he insists that what is known is in the things, 
and that man can know realities. Under Natural Instinct he treats 
of Common Notions, Koival ivvolal, and specifies six marks : 1. 
Their priority, the natural instinct being the first to act, and the 
discursive faculty the last. 2. Their independence, that is, of every 
other. 3. Their universality, giving universal consent. 4. Their 
certainty, which allows not of doubt. 5. Their necessity, which he 
explains as^ their tendency towards the preservation of men (a very 
unsatisfactory account of this characteristic). 6. The immediacy of 
their operation. His exposition of the Internal Sense is not very 
clear; but under it he treats of the conscience which he describes as 



40 GENERAL VIEW OF PRIMITIVE PRINCIPLES. 

" sensus communis sensuum internorum," and as discovering what is 
good and evil, and what ought to be done. Passing over his account 
of the External Senses and the Discursive Power, we may mention 
his Common Notions about religion. They are, that there is a Su- 
preme Deity; that he ought to be worshipped; that virtue with piety 
should be main part of the worship ; that there is in the mind a 
horror of crime which should lead to repentance ; and that there are 
rewards and punishments in another life. Under this system I 
would remai'k: a, that Herbert does not see that Natural Instinct 
runs through all the faculties ; 6, he does not accurately distinguish 
between Natural Instinct and the Common Notions, nor see that in 
the formation of the latter there is an exercise of the Discursive 
Power ; c, while he has caught a vague view of the more important 
characteristics of our intuitions, he has not apprehended them 
closely, and he fails in the application of his own tests. 

VII. The English Divines of the Seventeenth Century, 
both High Church and Puritan, often discuss the question as be- 
tween Aristotle and Plato (not as between Locke and Descartes), 
as to the nature of ideas, and throw out views in which there is 
much truth, but also much confusion. They held that there is some- 
thing in the mind, and born with it, which is deeper than sense and 
experience. Thus Dr. Jackson, in A Treatise concerning the Original 
of Unbelief, Misbelief, or Mispersuasion concerning the Veritie, Unitie, 
and Attributes of the Deity (1625), inquires what truth there is in the 
Platonic theory of ideas and reminiscence, and cannot just agree 
with those who maintain that there are notions in the soul like 
letters written with the juice of onions, and ready to come forth on 
certain applications being made to them. His doctrine is, " The 
soul of man being created after the image of God (in whom are all 
things), though of an indivisible and immortal nature, hath notwith- 
standing such a virtual similitude of all things as the eye hath of 
colors, the ear of sounds, or the common sense of these and other 
sensibles, woven by the finger of God in its essential constitution or 
intimate indissoluble temper. ' ' The Cambridge Platonists all main- 
tained that there was something in the soul prior to sense, but requir- 
ing sense to call it forth, and were fond of describing this as 
"connate " or " connatural." H. More states the question, " Whe- 
ther the soul of man be a rasa tabula, or whether she have innate 
notions and ideas in herself? " He answers, " For so it is that she 
having first occasion of thinking from external objects, it has so 
imposed on some men's judgments, that they have conceited that the 



CRITICAL REVIEW OF OPINIONS. 41 

soul has no knowledge nor notion, but what is in a passive way inn- 
pressed oi\ delineated upon her from the objects of sense; they not 
warily enough distinguishing between extrinsical occasions and the 
adequate or principal causes of things." " Nor will that prove any- 
thing to the purpose when it shall be alleged that this notion is not 
so connatural and essential to the soul because she framed it from 
some occasions from without." In modification he allows, " I do not 
mean that there is a certain number of ideas as glaring and shining 
to the animadversive faculty, like so many torches or stars in the 
firmament to our outward sight, or that there are any figures that 
take their distinct places, and are legibly writ there like the red 
letters or astronomical characters in an almanac " (Antidote against 
Atheism). Culverwel says, "You must not, nor cannot, think that 
nature's law is confined and contracted within the compass of two or 
three common notions, but reason, as with one foot it fixes a centre, 
so with the other it measures and spreads out a circumference; it 
draws several conclusions, which do all meet and crowd into these 
first and central principles. As in those noble mathematical sciences 
there are not only some first oiT^yuara which are granted as soon as 
they are asked, if not before, but there are also whole heaps of firm 
and immovable demonstrations that are built upon them." He talks 
of a " connate " notion of a Deity, but then he shows that there is 
a process of the understanding in it, "so that no other innate light 
but only the power of knowing and reasoning is the ' candle of the 
Lord' " {Light of Nature, pp. 82, 127, 128. Edition by Brown and 
Cairns). Cudworth stands up for an immutable morality discovered 
by reason, and distinguishes, like More, between occasion and cause 
(see infra, Part iii. Book i. Chap. ii. sect. vi.). The Puritans gen- 
erally appealed to first principles, intellectual and moral. Thus 
Baxter says (Reasons of the Christian Religion, p. 1), " And if I 
could not answer a sceptic who denied the certainty of my judgment 
by sensation and reflexive intuition [how near to Locke], yet nature 
would not suffer me to doubt." "By my actions I know that I am; 
and that I am a sentient, intelligent, thinking, willing, and operative 
being." " It is true that there is in the nature of man's soul a cer- 
tain aptitude to understand certain truths as soon as they are re- 
vealed, that is, as soon as the very natura rerum is observed. And 
it is true that this disposition is brought to actual knowledge as soon 
as the mind comes to the actual consideration of things. But it is 
not true that there is any actual knowledge of any principle born in 
man." It is wrong to " make it consist in certain axioms (as some 



42 GENERAL VIEW OF PRIMITIVE PRINCIPLES. 

say) born in us, or written in our hearts from our birth (as others 
say), dispositively there." These distinctions do not exhaust the 
subject, but they contain important truth; and if Locke had attended 
to them he would have been saved from extravagant statements. 
Owen, in his Dissertation on Divine Justice, appeals, in proving the 
existence of justice, (1) to the " common opinion " and innate con- 
ceptions of all; (2) to the consciences of all mankind; (3) to the 
public consent of all nations. Howe, in his Living Temple, appeals 
to " the relics of common notions, the lively points of some undefaced 
truth, the fair ideas of things, the yet legible precepts that relate to 
practice." 

VIII. Descartes lays hold of a large body of important truth in 
regard to innate ideas. 1. He sees that they are of the nature of 
powers or faculties ready to operate, but needing to be called 
forth. "Lorsque je dis que quelque id^e est nee avec nous, ou 
qu'elle est naturellement empreinte en nos ames, je n'entends pas 
quelle se prdsente toujours k notre pensde, car ainsi il n'y en aurait 
aucune ; mais j'entends seulement que nous avons en nous-memes 
la faculte de la produire " (Trois Objec. Rep. Obj. 10). See other 
passages to the same effect, quoted by Mr. Veitch, Trans, of Med. 
etc., pp. 207, 208. 2. He has glimpses, but confused, of the test of 
self -evidence, which he unhappily represents as clearness. " Toutes 
les choses que nous concevons clairement et distinctement sont 
vraies de la fa9on dont nous les concevons " {Med. Abrege). He 
thus explains clearness and distinctness : " J'appelle claire celle qui 
est presente et manifesto k un esprit attentif ; de meme que nous 
disons voir clairement les objets, lorsqu'etant presents k nos 
yeux ils agissent assez fort sur eux, et qu'ils sont disposes k les 
regarder; et distincte, celle qui est tellement precise et diffdrente 
de toutes les autres, qu'elle ne comprend en soi que ce qui paroit 
manifestement k celui qui la consid^re comme il faut " (Prin. Phil. i. 
45). 3. He sees that they assume the shape of common notions. 4. 
These are represented as eternal truths of intelligence: " Lorsque 
nous pensons qu'on ne sauroit faire quelque chose de rien, nous ne 
croyons point que cette proposition soit une chose qui existe ou la 
propria te de quelque chose, mais nous la prenons pour une certaine 
verite dternelle qui a son sidge en notre pensee, et que Ton nomme 
une notion commune ou une maxime ; tout de meme quand on dit 
qu'il est impossible qu'une meme chose soit et ne soit pas en meme 
temps, que ce qui a ^te fait ne pent n'etre pas fait, que celui qui 
pense ne peut manquer d'etre ou d'exister pendant qu'il pense, et 



CRITICAL REVIEW OF OPINIONS. 43 

quantite d'autre semblables, ce sont seulement des v^rit^s, et non 
pas des choses qui soient hors de notre pens^e, et il y en a un si 
grand nombre de telles qu'il seroit malais^ de les d^nombrer " (Prin. 
Phil. i. 49). 5. He discovers that they come forth into consciousness; 
hence he calls them innate ideas, and defines idea : " Cette forme de 
chacune de nos pensdes par la perception immediate de laquelle nous 
avons connaissance de ces memes pensdes " {Rep. mix Deux Object.). 
But there is confusion throughout in the view which he takes, and 
in his mode of expression. 1. He gives no account of the relation 
between the faculty on the one hand, and the idea or common 
notion on the other. He does not see that abstraction and generali- 
zation are necessary in order to reach the abstract and general idea. 
2. The test of self-evidence is not well expressed ; in this respect he 
is inferior to Locke. The clearness and distinctness of an idea is, 
to say the least of it, a very ambiguous phrase, for in some senses 
of the word we may have a very clear idea of an imaginary object, 
or a distinct idea of a falsehood. 3. That there is confusion in this 
view is evident from the circumstance that he often states that these 
truths are not equally admitted by all, because they are opposed to 
the prejudices of some. He speaks of persons " qui ont imprimd de 
longue main des opinions en leur cr^ance, qui '^tait contraires h. 
quelques-unes de ces v^rit^s " {Prin. i. 50). 4. He expects far too 
much from a bare contemplation of the principles or causes of 
things: "Mais I'ordre que j'ai tenu en ceci a ^t^ tel : premi^re- 
ment, j'ai tach^ de trouver en gdn^ral les principes ou premieres 
causes de tout ce qui est ou qui peut etre dans le monde, sans rien 
considerer pour cet effet que Dieu seul qui la cr^e, ni les tirer 
d'ailleurs que de certaines semences de v^rit^s qui sont naturelle- 
ment en nos ames. Apres cela, j'ai examine quels dtaient les 
premiers et les plus ordinaires effets qu'on pouvait d^duire de ces 
causes ; et il me semble que par Ik j'ai trouve des cieux, des astres, 
une terre, et meme sur la terre de I'eau, de I'air," etc. (MeVi. 
Part. VI.) 

IX. Locke has, in his account of the Human Understanding, 
both a sensational, or rather an experiential, element, and a rational 
element. Eagerly bent on establishing his favorite position that all 
our ideas are derived from sensation and reflection, he has not 
blended these elements very successfully, nor been at much pains to 
show their consistency. In France they took the sensational element 
and overlooked the other. The Arians and Socinians of Britain 
seized eagerly on the rational element. In his unmeasured coa- 



44 GENERAL VIEW OF PRIMITIVE PRINCIPLES. 

demnation of innate ideas in the First Book of his Essay, he seems 
to deny truths which he openly defends or incidentally allows in 
other parts of the work. 1. He gives a high place to reason. Thus, 
in replying to Stillingfleet, he says : " Reason, as standing for true 
and clear principles, and also as standing for clear and fair deductions 
from those principles, I have not wholly omitted, as it is manifest 
from what I have said of self-evident propositions, intuitive knowl- 
edge, and demonstration, in other parts of my Essay." Speaking 
of self-evident propositions : " Whether they come in view of the 
mind earlier or later, this is true of them, that they are all known 
by their native evidence, are wholly independent, receive no light, 
nor are capable of any proof one from another " (see Rogers' Essays, 
Locke, p. 47). 2. He gives an important place to intuition in Book 
IV. 3. He fixes on self-evidence as the mark of intuition. " Some- 
times the mind perceives the agreement or disagreement of two ideas 
immediately by themselves, without the intervention of any other, 
and this I think we may call intuitive knowledge. From this the 
mind is at no pains of proving or examining, but perceives the truth, 
as the eye doth light, only by being directed towards it." " This kind 
of knowledge is the clearest and most certain that human frailty is 
capable of. This part of knowledge is irresistible, and like bright 
sunshine, forces itself immediately to be perceived as soon as ever 
the mind turns its view that way, and leaves no room for hesitation, 
doubt, or examination, but the mind is presently filled with the clear 
light of it." " He that demands a greater certainty than this 
demands he knows not what, and shows only that he has a mind to 
be a sceptic without being able to be so ^\Essay, Book iv. Chap. ii. 
sect. i. ; see, also, Book iv. Chap. xvii. sect. iv.). Among truths 
known intuitively " we have an intuitive knowledge of our own 
existence" (Book iv. Chap. iii. sect, xxi.) ; and "man knows by 
an intuitive certainty that bare nothing can no more produce 
any real being than it can be equal to two right angles" (Book 
IV. Chap. X. sect. iii.). 4. He is obliged at times to appeal to 
necessity of conception. Thus, in arguing with Stillingfleet : " The 
idea of beginning to be is necessarily connected with the idea 
of some operation ; and the idea of operation with the idea of 
something operating, which we call a cause." " The idea of a 
right-angled triangle necessarily carries with it an equality of its 
angles to two right ones; nor can we conceive this relation, this 
connection of these two ideas, to be possibly mutable" (Essay, 
Book IV. Chap. iii. sect. xxix.). He speaks of certain and universal 



CRITICAL REVIEW OF OPINIONS. 45 

knowledge as having "necessary connection," "necessary coexis- 
tence," " necessary dependence" (see Webb on the Intellectualism 
of Locke, p. iii.). 5. He sees that intuitive general maxims are all 
derived from particulars. This follows from his general maxim that 
the mind begins with particulars. "The ideas first in the mind, 'tis 
evident, are those of particular things, from which by slow degrees 
the understanding proceeds to some few general ones " (Book IV. 
Chap. vii. sect. ix.). " In particulars our knowledge begins, and so 
spreads itself by degrees to generals " (Book iv. Chap. vii. sect. xi.). 
Following out this view, he speaks of the general propositions be- 
ing" not innate, but collected from a preceding acquaintance and 
reflection on particular instances. These, when observing men have 
made them, unobserving men when they are proposed to them can- 
not refuse their assent to " (Book i. Chap. ii. sect. xxi.). 6. He sees 
clearly — what Kant never saw — that the mind rises to universal 
propositions by looking at things, and the nature of things. " Had 
they examined the ways whereby men come to the knowledge of 
many universal truths, they would have found them to result in the 
minds of men from the being of things themselves when duly consid- 
ered, and that they were discovered by the application of those 
faculties which were fitted by nature to receive and judge of them 
when duly employed about them " (Book i. Chap. iv. sect. xxv.). 

But, on the other hand, Locke has admitted or controverted 
certain great truths. 1. He imagines that when he has disproved 
innate ideas in the sense of phantasms and general notions, he has 
therefore disproved them in every sense. 2. He does not see that 
the intuition which he acknowledges must have a rule, law, or 
principle, which may be described as innate, inasmuch as it is in 
the mind prior to all experience. 3. Misled by his theory of the 
mind looking at ideas and not at things, he represents intuition as 
concerned solely with the comparison of ideas. This was noticed 
by the Bishop of Derry [Dr. King, author of the Origin of Evil'], 
in a letter dated Johnstoun, October 26, 1697, to Locke's friend, 
Mr. Molyneux : "To me it seems that, according to Mr. Locke, I 
cannot be said to know anything except there be two ideas in my 
mind, and all the knowledge I have must be concerning the relation 
these two ideas have to one another, and that I can be certain of 
nothing else, which in my opinion excludes all certainty of sense and 
of single ideas, all certainty of consciousness, such as willing, con- 
ceiving, believing, knowing, etc., and, as he confesses, all certainty 
of faith, and, lastly, all certainty of remembrance of which I have 



46 GENERAL VIEW OF PRIMITIVE PRINCIPLES. 

formerly demonstrated as soon as I have forgot or do not actually 
think of the demonstration" (Letters between Locke and Molyneux). 
Reid I'efers to Locke's notion that belief or knowledge consists in a 
perception of the agreement or disagreement of ideas, and charac- 
terizes it as "one of the main pillars of modern scepticism." "I 
say a sensation exists, and I think I understand clearly what I mean. 
But you want to make the thing clearer, and for that end tell me 
that there is an agreement between the idea of that sensation and 
the idea of existence. To speak freely, this conveys to me no light 
but darkness. I can conceive no otherwise of it than as an odd and 
obscure circumlocution. I conclude, then, that the belief which ac- 
companies sensation and memory is a simple act of the mind which 
cannot be defined " (Collected Writings, Vol. I. p. 107). 4. He does 
not see the peculiar nature of intuitive maxims. He perceives that 
they are got by generalization — the great truth overlooked by the 
special supporters of innate ideas ; but he fails to observe that they 
are the generalization of primitive cognitions and truths, which carry 
with them self-evidence and necessity. 

X. Leibnitz has profound, but in some respects extravagant, 
views of necessary truths. 1. He sees that they have a place in 
the mind, as habitudes, dispositions, aptitudes, faculties. " Les 
connaissancfes ou les veritds, en tant qu'elles sont en nous, quand 
meme on n'y pense point, sont des habitudes ou des dispositions" 
(Nouv. Essais, Opera, p. 213 ; ed. Erdmann). At the same place he 
calls them "aptitudes." "Lorsqu'on dit que les notions inn^es sont 
implicitement dans I'esprit, cela doit signifier seulement, qu'il a la 
faculty de les connaitre " (p. 212). 2. "Leibnitz has the honor of 
first explicitly enouncing the criterion of necessity, and Kant of 
first fully applying it to the phenomena. In nothing has Kant been 
more successful than in this under consideration." So says Ham- 
ilton (Reid's Collected Writings, p. 323). The remark seems cor- 
rect ; but it should be added that Aristotle, as has been shown, 
expressly fixed on necessity, while others appealed to it ; even 
Locke speaks of knowledge as "irresistible," and of " necessarj' re- 
lations." Leibnitz draws more decidedly than had been done before 
the distinction between necessary and eternal truths and truths of 
experience (p. 209). 3. Because of the natural faculty and "pre- 
formation," the ideas tend to come into consciousness in a special 
form. "II y a toujours une disposition particuli^re k I'action, et a 
une action plutSt qu'a I'autre" (p. 223). He illustrates this by 
supposing that in the marble there might be veins which marked 



CRITICAL REVIEW OF OPINIONS. 47 

out a particular figure, say that of Hercules, preferably to others. 
" Mais s'il y avoit des veines dans la pierre, qui marquassent la 
figure d'Hercule pref^rableraent k d'autres figures, cette pierre y 
seroit plus determinee, et Hercule y seroit comme innd en quelque 
facon" (p. 196). 4. He represents the intellect itself as a source 
of ideas. To the maxim " NUiil est in inielleciu quod non fuerit in 
sensu," he adds, ^^ nisi ipse intelleclus." The expression is not 
very explicit. He explains it : " Or I'ame renferme I'etre, la sub- 
stance, I'un, le meme, la cause, la perception, le raisonnement, et 
quantite d'autres notions." But he is surely wrong in identifying 
these with Locke's ideas of reflection (p. 223). 5. He sees that 
there is need of more than spontaneity, that there is need of some 
intellectual process, in order to discover the general truth. " Les 
maximes innees ne paroissent que par I'attention qu'on leur donne " 
(p. 213). But : 1. He separates necessary truths from things, and 
making them altogether mental, he led the way to that subjective 
tendency which was carried so far by Kant. 2. He does not dis- 
tinguish between the necessary principle as a disposition uncon- 
sciously in the mind and a general maxim discovered by a process. 
3. He does not see that the general maxim is reached by generaliz- 
ing the individual necessary truths. 

XI. Lord Shaftesbury protests against Locke's rejection of 
everything innate and falls back on the word " connatural," derived 
from Culverwel. " Innate is a word he (Locke) poorly plays upon; 
the right word, though less used, is connatural " (Letters to a Young 
Gentleman'). He shows that there are many qualities natural to 
man, and dwells fondly on the sense of beauty and the moral sense. 
He supplied the Scottish School with the phrase common sense, which 
he represents as being the same with "natural knowledge" and 
" fundamental reason." " Whatever materials or principles of this 
kind we may possibly bring with us, whatever good faculties, senses, 
or anticipating sensations and imaginations may be of nature's 
growth, and arise properly of themselves without our art, promo- 
tion, or assistance, the general idea which is formed of all this 
management, and the clear notion we attain of what is preferable 
and principal in all these subjects of choice and estimation will not, 
as I imagine, by any person be mistaken for innate. Use, practice, 
and culture must precede the understanding and wit of such an 
advanced size and growth as this" (Miscellanies, iii. 2: in Charac- 
teristics). 

XH. Bupfier's principal treatise is on Premieres Verites. He 



48 GENERAL VIEW OF PRIMITIVE PRINCIPLES. 

sees : 1. That there was in the mind an original law, which he char- 
acterizes as a " disposition." 2. He speaks of it as coming forth in 
common and uniform judgments among all men, or the greater part. 
3. He sees that it does not thus come forth till mature age, and till 
men come to the use of reason. These three points are all brought 
out in the following sentence : " J'entends ici par le Sens Com- 
MUN, la disposition que la nature a mise dans tous les hommes, ou 
manifestement dans la plupart d'entre eux, pour leur faire porter, 
quand ils ont atteint I'usage de la raison, un jugement commun et 
uniforme sur des objets differents du sentiment intime de leur propre 
perception: jugement qui n'est point la consequence d'aucun principe 
anterieur " (P. i. c. v.). 4. He specifies several important practical 
characteristics of first truths. "1. Le premier de ces caractferes 
est qu'elles soient si claires, que quand on entreprend de les prouver 
ou de les attaquer, on ne le puisse faire que par des propositions qui 
manifestement ne sont ni plus claires ni plus certaines. 2. D'etre 
si universellement revues parmi les hommes en tout temps, en tous 
lieux, et par toutes sortes d'esprits, que ceux qui les attaquent se 
trouvent, dans le genre humain, etre manifestement moins d'un 
centre cent, ou menie centre mille. 3. D'etre si fortement im- 
prim^es dans nous, que nous y conformions notre condiiite, malgrd 
les raffinements de ceux qui imaginent des opinions contrah-es, et qui 
eux-memes agissent conformdment, non k leurs opinions imagindes, 
mais aux premieres v^rit^s universellement re9ues " (P. i. c. vii.). 
It does not appear, however, that (1) he fixed explicitly on their 
deeper qualities of self-evidence and necessity, or (2) showed the 
relation between their individual and general form. 

XIII. Francis Hutcheson, the founder of the Scottish School, 
discusses the question whether metaphysical axioms are innate. He 
denies that they are innate in the sense of their being known or 
observed from our birth, and maintains that in their general form 
they are not reached till after many comparisons of singular ideas. 
He stands up for self-evident axioms, in which the mind perceives 
at once the agreement and disagreement of subject and predicate, 
and represents them as being eternal and immutable (see his Meta- 
physics). 

XIV. Reid's great merit lies in establishing certain principles of 
Common Sense, such as those of substance and quality, cause and 
efEect, and moral good, as against the scepticism of Hume. He does 
not profess to give an exhaustive account of these principles, nor to 
enter minutely into their distinctive character and mode of opera- 



CRITICAL REVIEW OF OPINIONS. 49 

tion, but in conducting his proper work he has mentioned nearly all 
their distinctive qualities. 1. He represents them as being in the 
nature of man; thus he speaks of "an original principle of our con- 
stitution " (p. 121), and calls them " original and natural judg- 
ments," as " part of that furniture which Nature hath given to the 
human understanding," as "the inspiration of the Almighty " and 
"a part of our constitution " (p. 209, Collected Writings : Hamilton's 
edition). 2. He represents the mind as having a sense or perception 
of them; and on the one hand avoids the error of Locke, who 
regards intuition as concerned solely with a comparison of ideas, and 
he does not, on the other hand, fall into that of Kant, who looks on 
them as mere forms in the mind. 3. He follows Locke in fixing on. 
self-evidence as a decisive test. " We ascribe to reason two offices, 
or two degrees. The first is to judge of things self-evident; the 
second, to draw conclusions that are not self-evident from those that 
are. The first of these is the province, and the sole province, of 
common sense, and therefore it coincides with reason in its whole 
extent, and is only another name for one branch or one degree of 
reason" (p. 425; see, also, p. 422). 4. He specifies necessity as a 
mark. " By the constitution of our nature we are under a necessity 
of assent to them " (p. 130). He speaks of a certain truth " being 
a necessary truth, and therefore no object of sense." "It is not 
that things which begin to exist commonly have a cause, or even 
that they always in fact have a cause, but that they must have a 
cause, and cannot begin to exist without a cause " (p. 455; see, also, 
pp. 456, 521). Yet he has not a steady apprehension of necessity as 
a test, for he says : " I resolve for my own part always to pay a 
great regard to the dictates of common sense, and not to depart from 
them without absolute necessity " (p. 112), as if necessitj' did not 
preclude our departing from them. 5. He characterizes them as 
catholic; thus he appeals to the "universal consent of mankind; 
not of philosophers only, but of the rude and unlearned vulgar" 
(p. 456). 

His positive errors on this subject are not many, but he has not 
seen the full truth, and he has fallen into several oversights. 1. By 
neglecting a rigid use of tests, he has described some truths as first 
principles into which there enters an experiential element. Thus, 
for example, " that there is life and intelligence in our fellow-men," 
" that certain features of the countenance, sounds of the voice, and 
gestures of the body indicate certain thoughts and dispositions of 
the mind" (p. 449); that "there is a certain regard due to hu- 



60 GENERAL VIEW OF PRIMITIVE PRINCIPLES. 

man testimony in matters of fact, and even to human authority 
in matters of opinion" (p. 450) ; and "that in the phenomena of 
Nature, what is to be will probably be like to what has been in 
similar circumstances" (p. 451). A rigid application of the tests 
of self-evidence and necessity would have shown that these were 
not first principles. 2. He is not careful to distinguish between the 
Spontaneous and Reflex use of common sense. He uses legitimately 
the argument from common sense against Hume, but in philosophy 
we must use the reflex principle carefully expressed, whereas Reid 
often appeals in a loose way to the spontaneous conviction. And 
here I may take the opportunity of stating my conviction (and this 
notwithstanding Sir W. Hamilton's defence of it in Note A^ that 
the phrase " common sense " is an unfortunate, because a loose and 
ambiguous one. Common sense (besides its use by Ai'istotle, see 
Hamilton's Note A) has two meanings in ordinary discourse. It 
may signify, first, that unacquired, unbought, untaught sagacity, 

' which certain men have by nature, and which other men never 
can acquire, even though subjected to the process mentioned by 
Solomon (Prov. xxvii. 22), and brayed in a mortar. Or it might 

, signify the communis sensus, or the perceptions and judgments 
which are common to all men. It is only in this latter sense that 
the argument from common sense is a philosophic one ; that is, only 
on the condition that the appeal be to convictions which are in all 
men ; and further, that there has been a systematic exposition of 
them. Reid did make a most legitimate use of the argument from 
common sense, appealing to convictions in all men ; and bringing 
out to view, and expressing with greater or less accuracy, the 
principles involved in these convictions. But then, he has also 
taken advantage of the first meaning of the phrase; he represents 
the strength of these original judgments as good sense (p. 209) ; he 
appeals from philosophy to common sense ; and in order to counter- 
act the impression left by the high intellectual abilities of Hume, he 
shows that those who opposed Hume were not such fools, after all, 
but have the good sense and shrewdness of mankind on their side 
(see p. 127, etc., with foot-notes of Hamilton). This has led many 
to suppose that the argument of Reid and Beattie is altogether an 
address to the vulgar. In this way, what seemed at the time a 
very dexterous use of a two-edged sword has turned against those 
who employed it, and injustice has been done to the Scottish School 
of philosophers, wh^ do make a proper use of the argument from 
common sense. 3. He does not see how to reconcile the doctrine 



CRITICAL REVIEW OF OPINIONS. 61 

(of Locke) that all maxims appear in consciousness as particulars, 
with his own doctrine of there being principles in the constitution 
of the mind, and thence coming forth in general propositions. 

XV. Kant has, next to Locke, exercised the greatest influence 
on modern speculation. As a general rule, the one dwells upon and 
magnifies the truths which the other overlooks. Kant is a reaction 
against Locke. He carries out, in his own logical way, certain 
principles which had grown up in the schools of Descartes, Leib- 
nitz, and Wolf. 1. He sees more clearly, and explains more fully 
than ever had been done before, that the a priori principles are in 
the mind in the character of forms, or rules, prior to their being 
called forth or exercised. Thus, speaking of our intuition of space, 
he says it must be already a priori in the mind ; that is, before any 
perception of objects. "Die Form derselben muss zu ihnen ins- 
gesammt im Gemiithe a priori bereit liegen und daher abgesondert 
von aller Empfindung konnen betrachtet werden ' (Werke, Bd. ii. p. 
32 ; ed. Rosenki'anz). The mind has not only Intuitions of Space 
and Time to impose on phenomena or presentations, it has cate- 
gories of Quantity, Quality, Relation, Modality, to impose on its 
cognitions ; and Ideas of Substance, Totality of Phenomena, and 
Deity, to impose on the judgments reached by the categories. 2. 
He maintains that the forms of the sensibility and the categories of 
the understanding have all a reference to objects of experience, real 
or possible ; this, in fact, is their use — without this they would be 
meaningless. The ideas of pure reason do, however, refer to the 
comparisons of the understanding, and not to objects, and fruitless 
speculation arises from supposing that they refer to objects ; and 
there may also be an undue use of the forms of sense and the 
categories of the understanding, but in themselves they refer to 
objects of possible experience (Kriiik d. r. V. Trans. Dial.). 3. He 
proposes in his great work, the Kritik of Pure Reason, to give an 
inventory, in systematic order, of the a priori principles in the mind : 
*' Denn es ist nichts als das Inventarium aller unserer Besitze durch 
reine Vernunft, systematisch geordnet" (Vorrede zu erst. Auf.). 
He seeks for an organon, which would be a compendium of the 
principles according to which a priori cognitions would be obtained : 
"Ein Organon der reinen Vernunft wurde ein Inbegriff derjenigen 
Principien seyn, nach denen alle reine Erkentnisse a priori konnen 
erworben und wirklich zu Stande gebracht werden " (Einleit.). 4. 
He uses systematically the test of Necessity and Universality, mean- 
ing by Universality the Universality of the Truth. 



52 GENERAL VIEW OF PRIMITIVE PRINCIPLES. 

But, on the other hand, he has fallen into the grossest misappre- 
hensions regarding the nature of the a priori principles of reason. 
1. He maintains that the mind can have no intuition of things. 
All that it can know are mere presentations or phenomena. It is 
all true that the Forms of Sense and the Categories relate to 
objects of possible experience, but then, experience does not give 
us a knowledge of things. " Es sind demnach die Gegensfande der 
Erfahrung niemals an sich selbst." Speaking even of self-conscious- 
ness, he says, it does not know self as it exists : " Und Selbst ist 
die innere und sinnliche Anschauung unseres Gemiiths (als Gegen- 
standes des Bewusstseyns) . . . auch nicht das eigentliche Selbst, 
so wie es an sich existirt " (Bd. ii. p. 389). He thus separates the 
intuitions of the mind altogether from things, 2. He makes our 
a priori Intuitions impose on phenomena the forms of Space and 
Time, which have no existence out of the mind. The categories 
are frameworks for binding conceptions into judgments. The ideas 
of pure reason reduce the judgments to unity, but have no reference 
to objects ; and if we suppose them to have, we are landed in illusion 
and contradictions. By this system he makes much ideal which we 
are naturally led to regard as real, and thus prepared the way for 
Fichte, who made the whole ideal. 3. His method of discovering 
the a priori principles of the mind is not the Inductive, but the 
Critical. Reason is called to undertake the task of self-examination, 
which may secure its righteous claims, not in an arbitrary way, but 
according to its own eternal and unchangeable laws. " Eine Aiiffor- 
derung an die Vernunft, das beschwerlichste aller ihrer Gesch'afte, 
namlich das der Selbsterkenntniss aufs Neue zu iibernehmen und 
einen Gerichtshof einzusetzen, der sie bei ihren gerechten AnsprU- 
chen sichere, dagegen aber alle grundlose Anmaassungen nicht durch 
Machtspriiche sondern nach ihren ewigen und unwandelbaren Ge- 
setzen " (Vor. zu erst. Auf.). Reason was thus set on criticising 
itself according to laws of its own, and a succession of speculators 
set out each with what he alleged to be the laws of reason, but no 
two of them agreed as to what the laws of reason are, or what the 
standard by which to test them, and conclusions were reached which 
were evidently most irrational. 

XVI. DuGALD Stewart delighted to look on our intuitions 
under the aspect of "Fundamental Laws of Human Belief" (Elem. 
Vol. II. Chap. i.). 1. He sees that they are of the nature of laws 
in the mind. 2. He sees that they are natural, original, and fun- 
damental. 3. He sees that they are involved in the faculties. Hence 



CRITICAL REVIEW OF OPINIONS. 53 

he calls them " elements of reason" (Elem. Vol. n. p. 49; Ham. 
edit.) ; he would identify them with the exercise of our reasoning 
powers, and speaks of them as "component elements," without 
which the faculty of reasoning is inconceivable and impossible (p. 39). 
It may be added that while he never formally appeals to necessity, 
he is obliged to use it incidentally. Thus " every man is impressed 
with an irresistible conviction that all his sensations, thoughts, and 
volitions belong to one and the same being " {Elem. Vol. i. p. 47) ; 
and " we are impressed with an irresistible conviction of our per- 
sonal identity " (Essays, p. 59). Speaking of causes, in the meta- 
physical meaning of the word, he says, the " word cause expresses 
something which is supposed to be necessarily connected with the 
change" (Elem. Vol. i. p. 97). In looking on them as "funda- 
mental laws," and in avoiding the ambiguity of the phrase " com- 
mon sense," he has gone beyond Reid, but otherwise he has not 
thrown much light on them. He is in great confusion from not 
discovering how it is that "the elements of reason " may become 
general maxims, axioms, or principles; and his whole view of mathe- 
matical axioms is erroneous (see Elem. Vol. ii.). 

XVII. Dr. Thomas Brown has demonstrated, with great in- 
genuity, that our belief in the invariableness of cause and effect 
cannot be had from experience (Cause and Effect, Part iii. sect, 
iii.). He has also shown that the belief in our personal identity 
is intuitive (Lect. 13). When he comes to our intuitions, he speaks 
of them as "principles of thought; " as "primary universal intui- 
tions of direct belief;" as "being felt intuitively, universally, im- 
mediately, irresistibly; "as "an internal, never-ceasing voice from 
the Creator and Preserver of our being;" as "omnipotent, like 
their Author ; " and " such that it is impossible for us to doubt them " 
(Lect. 13). These are fine expressions, but his view of them is 
meagre, after all, and a retrogression from the Scottish School. He 
makes no inquiry into their nature, laws, or tests. 

XVIII. Sir William Hamilton's Note A, appended to his 
edition of Reid's Collected Writings , is the most important contribution 
made in this century to the science of first truths. 1. He has there 
specified nearly every important character of our intuitive convic- 
tions, and attached to them an appropriate nomenclature. 2. He has 
shown that the argument from common sense is one strictly scientific 
and eminently philosophic. 3. He has with unsurpassed erudition 
brought testimonials in behalf of the principles of common sense 
from the writings of the eminent thinkers of all ages and countries. 



54 GENERAL VIEW OF PRIMITIVE PRINCIPLES. 

Biit on the other hand: 1. He fails to draw the distinction be- 
tween common sense as an aggregate of laws in the mind, as con- 
victions in consciousness, and as generalized maxims. Thus the 
confusion of the spontaneous cognition and its generalized form 
appears in such passages as the following : " The primitive cog- 
nitions seem to leap ready from the womb of reason, like Pallas 
from the head of Jupiter ; sometimes the mind places them at the 
commencement of its operations, in order to have a point of support 
and a fixed basis, without which the operations would be impossible; 
sometimes they form in a certain sort the crowning, the consumma- 
tion, of all the intellectual operations " (^Metaphysics, Led. 38). 2. 
He does not properly appreciate the circumstance that intuitive 
convictions all look to singulars, and that there is need of induction 
to reach the general truth. He supposes that the general truth is 
revealed at once to consciousness, " Philosophy is the development 
and application of the constitutive and normal truths which con- 
sciousness immediately reveals." "Philosophy is thus wholly de- 
pendent on consciousness" (Reid's Collected Writings, p. 746). It 
is true that philosophy is dependent on consciousness, but it is 
dependent also on abstraction and generalization. He calls ulti- 
mate, primary, and universal principles facts of consciousness {Met. 
Lect. 15). 3. His method is not the Inductive, but that of Critical 
Analysis introduced by Kant (Met. Lect. 29). He fails to observe 
that the mind in intuition looks at objects. He makes the mind's 
conviction in regard to such objects as space, substance, cause, and 
infinity to be impotencies, and their laws to be laws of thought, and 
not of things (Append, to Discuss, on Phil.). The error of such 
views will come out as we advance. 

XIX. M. Cousin has given, throughout all his philosophical 
works, clear and beautiful expositions of the elements of reason. 1. 
It is a favorite doctrine that reason looks at truths, eternal, univer- 
sal, and absolute ; truths, not to the individual or the race, but to 
all intelligences. 2. He uses, most successfully, the tests of neces- 
sity and universality, in order to distinguish the truths of reason 
from other truths. 3. He has distinguished between the sponta- 
neous and reflective form of the truths of reason (see ante, p. 19). 
4. He has shown that primitive truths are all at first individual. 
" C'est un fait qu'il ne faut pas oublier, et qu'on oublie beaucoup 
trop souvent, que nos jugements sont d'abord des jngements par- 
ticuliers et d^termin^s, et que c'est sous cette forme d'un jugement 
particulier et determine que font leur premiere apparition toutes 



CRITICAL REVIEW OF OPINIONS. 65 

les v4nt6s universelles et necessaires " (Se'r. ii. t. iii. lecj. 1 ; see also 
Ser. i. t. i. progr. ; t. ii. progr. lecj. ii.-iv. xi.). But on the other 
hand, he has given an exaggerated account of the power of human 
reason, and has not seen that induction is required in order to the 
discovery of necessary truth in its general form. 1. He uses un- 
happy and unguarded language in speaking of reason. His favorite 
epithet as applied to it is " impersonal ; " language which has a 
correct meaning inasmuch as the truth is not to the person, but to 
all intelligences, but is often so employed as, without his intending 
it, to come very close to those pantheistic systems which identify 
the Divine and human reason (see Se'r. ii. Ie9. v.). 2. His reduc- 
tion of the ideas of reason to three is full of 'confusion. The first 
idea is supposed to be unity, substance, cause, perfect, infinite, 
eternal ; the second, multiple, quality, effect, imperfect, finite, 
bounded ; and the third, the relation of the other two. It is to 
confound the things which manifestly differ, to make unity, cause? 
good, infinite, to be identical. The business of the metaphysician 
should be to observe each of these carefully, and bring out their 
peculiarities and their differences. 3. He does not see how it is that 
the general maxim is formed out of the particulars. He says that 
abstraction " saisit imm^diatement ce que le premier objet soumis 
k son observation renferme de gdn^ral (Ser. i. t. i. 169. xi.). He 
does not see that in order to the formation of the general law there 
is need of a process, often delicate and laborious, of observation, 
abstraction, and generalization. 

XX. Dr. Whewell has done great service at once to the phys- 
ical sciences and to metaphysics, by showing, in his History of 
Inductive Sciences : 1. That the former proceed upon and imply 
principles not got from experience ; that geometry and arithmetic 
depend on first truths regarding space, time, and number; and 
mechanical science on intuitions regarding force, matter, etc. 2. He 
has exhibited these principles in instructive forms, announcing them 
in their deeper and wider character under the designation of 
" fundamental ideas," and then presenting them under the name of 
"conceptions" in the more specific shapes in which they become 
available in the particular sciences : thus, in mechanical science 
the fundamental idea of cause becomes the conception of force. 
But then he has injured his work : 1. By following the Kantian 
doctrine of forms, and supposing that the mental ideas " impose " and 
"superinduce " on the objects something not in the objects, whereas 
they merely enable us to discover what is in the objects. 2. He 



56 GENERAL VIEW OF PRIMITIVE PRINCIPLES. 

also fails to show that, the ideas or maxims in the general form in 
which alone they are available in science are got by induction. 3. 
The phraseology which he employs is unfortunate; it is "funda- 
mental ideas " and "conceptions." The word "idea" has been 
used in so many different senses by different writers, by Plato, Des- 
cartes, Locke, Kant, and Hegel, that it is perhaps expedient to 
abandon it altogether in strict philosophic writing; it is certainly 
not expedient to use it, as Whewell does, in a new application. 
The word "conception" stands in classical English both for the 
phantasm, or image, and the logical notion ; certain later meta- 
physicians would restrict it to the logical notion ; and there is no 
propriety in using it to signify an a priori law. 4. He has damaged 
the general acceptance of his principles, which seem to me to be 
as true as they are often profound, by making a number of truths 
a priori which are evidently got from experience : thus he makes 
the law of action and re-action, and the laws of motion generally, 
self-evident and necessary. 

XXI. J. S. Mill. I have shown in Examination of Mr. J. S. 
Mill's Philosophy that while denying intuitive principles he is obliged 
constantly to assume them. 

XXII. LoTZE. He opens his work on Metaphysics by telling us 
that " Reality including Change is the subject of Metaphysic." In 
his dictations as reported by Professor Ladd he says that Metaphysic 
is the science of that which is actual, not of that which is merely 
thinkable." " The problem of Metaphysic is actually this : to dis- 
cover the laws of the connection which unites the particular (simul- 
taneous or successive) elements of actuality." It is pleasant to find a 
German philosopher thus turning to actuality which Kant had placed 
at such a distance. But he has stopped half-way, and has thus been 
able to do little for a Realistic Philosophy. He tells us that " the 
belief of ordinary intuition that it has an immediate perception of 
the nature of things can be only short-lived." By help of certain 
obvious distinctions I have been showing that this is the philosophy 
sure to be long-lived. He says, "To be" means " to stand in rela- 
tion," as if things did not require to he in order to stand in relation. 
He makes Space and Time to have only a subjective existence, 
whereas realism requires us to hold that the extension of that wall 
and the time of sunrise have quite as objective a reality as the wall 
and the event. 

XXIII. Herbert Spencer enunciates a fundamental principle. 
" The inconceivableness of its negation is that which shows a cogni- 



CRITICAL REVIEW OF OPINIONS. 57 

tion to possess the highest rank — is the criterion by which its un- 
surpassable validity is known." "If its negation is inconceivable, 
the discovery of this is the discovery that we are obliged to accept 
it. And a cognition which we are thus obliged to accept is one 
which we class as having the highest possible certainty " (^Psychology, 
Vol. II. p. 407). This is a very mutilated and partial version of the 
test of necessity. Mr. Spencer holds that all our cognitions and 
judgments are determined by our nervous structure, which has been 
fashioned by heredity. In this evolution man has no more freedom 
of will than the spoke has in the revolution of a wheel. We can 
conceive only what we are compelled to do by our inherited nervous 
frame, and we cannot conceive, certainly cannot believe, otherwise. 
Liberty of choice would be an evil in our world, as it might interfere 
with the evolution of nature. This cognition which we arc obliged 
to accept is not a cognition of things, as is maintained in this work, 
but is a necessity imposed on us by our descent. To us it is " the 
highest possible certainty, and unsurpassable," but it is not pretended 
that it is a certainty in the nature of things. In other worlds, with 
a different evolutionary process, it might not be certainty, but un- 
cei'tainty and error. We who feel as if we were free feel oppressed 
under this load. 



PART SECOND. 

PARTICULAR EXAMINATION OF PRIMITIVE TRUTHS. 



BOOK I. 
PKIMITIVE COGNITIONS. 

CHAPTER I. 

THE MIND BEGINS ITS INTELLIGENT ACTS WITH 
KNOWLEDGE. 

It is impossible to determine directly and certainly 
what are the first exercises of the soul, as the memory of 
the infant does not go so far back. It is supposed by 
many that it begins with some sort of sensations or feel- 
ings. This may or may not be. But it should be care- 
fully noted that these are not acts of intelligence, and 
that we cannot argue from them the existence of things 
without having more in the conclusion than we have in 
the premises. 

I think it can be shown that the mind must begin its 
intelligent acts with knowledge, which means that we 
know things. It is upon the things thus known that our 
thinking powers proceed. 

This is not the account usually given. From an early 
date the common opinion in philosophy was that the 
mind does not look at things, but on some idea, image, or 
representation of things. This view, with no pretensions 
to precision in the statement of it, was a prevalent one 



THE MIND ACTS \MTH KNOWLEDGE. 59 

in ancient Greece, in the scholastic ages, and in the 
earlier stages of modern philosophy. It seems to me to 
be the view which was habitually entertained by Des- 
cartes and Locke. In later times, the mind was sup- 
posed to commence with "impressions" of some kind. 
This view may be regarded as introduced formally into 
philosophy by Hume, who opens his Treatise of Human 
Nature by declaring that all the perceptions of the mind 
are impressions and ideas ; that impressions come first, 
and that ideas are the faint images of them. This view 
has evidently a materialistic tendency. Literally, an 
impression can be produced only on a material substance, 
and it is not easy to determine precisely what is meant 
by the phrase when it is applied to a state of the con- 
scious mind. This impression theory is the one adopted 
by the French Sensational School and by the physiolo- 
gists of this country. In Germany the influence exer- 
cised by Kant's ICritik of Pure Reason has made the 
general account to be that the mind starts with presen- 
tations, and not with things, with phenomena in the 
sense of appearances, which "phenomena" are but modi- 
fications of Hume's " impressions " and of the " ideas " 
of the ancients. Now it appears to me that all these 
accounts, consciousness being witness, are imperfect, and 
by their defects erroneous. The mind is not conscious 
of these impressions preceding the knowledge which it 
has immediately of self, and the objects falling under the 
notice of the senses. Nor can it be legitimately shown 
how the mind can ever rise from ideas, impressions, 
phenomena, to the knowledge of things. The followers 
of Locke have always felt the difficulty of showing how 
the mind from mere ideas could reach external realities. 
Hume designedly represented the original exercises of 
the mind as being mere impressions, in order to under- 



60 PARTICULAR EXAMINATION OF PRIMITIVE TRUTHS. 

mine the very foundations of knowledge. Though Kant 
acknowledged a reality beneath the presentations, be- 
yond the phenomena, those who followed out his views 
found the reality disappearing more and more, till at 
length it vanished altogether, leaving only a concate- 
nated series of mental forms. 

There is no effectual or consistent way of avoiding 
these consequences but by falling back on the natural 
system, and maintaining that the mind in its intelligent 
acts starts with knowledge. But let not the statement 
be misunderstood. I do not mean that the mind com- 
mences with abstract knowledge, or general knowledge, 
or indeed with systematized knowledge of any descrip- 
tion. It acquires first a knowledge of individual things, 
as they are presented to it and to its knowing faculties, 
and it is out of this that all its arranged knowledge is 
formed by a subsequent exercise of the understanding. 
From the concrete the mind fashions the abstract, by 
separating in thought a part from the whole, a quality 
from the object. Starting with the particular, the mind 
reaches the general by observing the points of agree- 
ment. From premises involving knowledge, it can arrive 
at other propositions also containing knowledge. It 
seems clear to me that if the mind had not knowledge 
in the foundation, it never could have knowledge in the 
superstructure reared ; but finding knowledge in its first 
intelligent exercises, it can thence, by the processes of 
abstraction, generalization, and reasoning, reach further 
and higher knowledge. 

The mind is endowed with at least two simple cog- 
nitive powers, — sense-perception and self -consciousness. 
Both are cognitive in their nature, and look on and 
reveal to us existing things : the one, material objects 
presented to us in our bodily frame and beyond it ; and 



THE MIND ACTS WITH KNOWLEDGE. 61 

the other, self in a particular state or exercise. It is 
altogether inadequate language to represent these fac- 
ulties as giving us an idea, or an impression, or an 
apprehension, or a notion, or a conception, or a belief, 
or looking to unknown appearances : they give us knowl- 
edge of objects under aspects presented to us. No other 
language is equal to express the full mental action of 
which we are conscious. 

If this view be correct, the unit of thought is not, 
as is commonly represented, judgment, but cognition 
of things, on which judgments may be formed. 



CHAPTER II. 

OUR INTUITION OF BODY BY THE SENSES. 



We are following the plainest dictates of conscious- 
ness, we avoid a thousand difficulties, and we get a solid 
ground on which to rest and to build, when we maintain 
that the mind in its first exercises acquires knowledge; 
not, indeed, scientific or arranged, not of qualities of ob- 
jects and classes of objects, but still knowledge, — the 
knowledge of things presenting themselves, and as they 
present themselves ; which knowledge, individual and 
concrete, is the foundation of all other knowledge, ab- 
stract, general, and deductive. In particular, the mind 
is so constituted as to attain a knowledge of body or of 
material objects. It may be difficult to ascertain the 
exact point or surface at which the mind and body come 
together and influence each other, in particuhir, how far 
•into the body (Descartes without proof thought to be 
in the pineal gland), but it is certain that when they 
do meet mind knows body as having its essential prop, 
erties of extension and resisting energy. It is through 
the bodily organism that the intelligence of man attains 
its knowledge of all material objects beyond. This is 
true of the infant mind ; it is true also of the mature 
mind. We may assert something more than this re- 
garding the organism. It is not only the medium 
through which we know all bodily objects beyond itself; 
it is itself an object primarily known ; nay, I am in- 
clined to think that, along with the objects immediately 



OUR INTUITION OF BODY BY THE SENSES. 63 

affecting it, it is \the only object originally known. 
Intuitively, man seems to know nothing bej^ond bis own 
organism, and objects directly affecting it ; in all further 
knowledge there is a process of inference proceeding on 
a gathered experience. This theory seems to me to 
explain all the facts, and it delivers us from many per- 
plexities. 

Let us go over the senses one by one, with a view of 
determining what seems to be the original information 
supplied by each. In the sense of smell, the objects 
immediately perceived are the nostrils as affected ; it is 
only by experience that we know that there is an object 
beyond, from which the smell proceeds, and it is only 
by science that we know that odorous particles have 
proceeded from that object. In hearing, our primary 
perceptions seem to be of the ear as affected ; that there 
is a sounding body we learn by further observation, and 
that there are vibrations between it and the ear we 
are told by scientific research. In taste, it is originally 
the palate as affected by -^hat we feel by another sense 
to be a tangible body, which body science tells us must 
be in a liquid state. In touch proper, there is a sensa- 
tion of a particular part of the frame as affected by we 
know not what, but which we maj discover by experi- 
ential observation. It is the same with all the impres- 
sions we have by the sense of temperature, the sense of 
titillation, the sense of shuddering, the sense of flesh- 
creeping, the sense of lightness or of weight, and the 
like organic affections, usually, but improperly, attrib- 
uted to touch. In regard to all these senses, it seems 
highly probable that our original and primitive percep- 
tions are simply of the organism as affected by some- 
thing unknown — so far as intuition is concerned. But 
there are other two senses which furnish, I am inclined to 



64 PARTICULAR EXAMINATION OF PRIMITIVE TRUTHS. 

think, a new and further kind of information. The sense 
of touch, when the phrase is used in a loose sense, is a 
complex one, embracing a considerable number and va- 
riety of senses, which have not been scientifically clas- 
sified, and which, perhaps, cannot be so till we have 
a more thorough physiology of the nerves. Certain it 
is that there is a locomotive energy and a muscular 
sense entirely different from feeling, or such affections 
as those of heat and cold. The soul of man instinct- 
ively wills to move the arm; an action is produced in 
a motor nerve, which sets in motion a muscle, with 
probably an attached set of bones, and the intimation 
of such a movement having taken place is conveyed to 
the brain by a sensor nerve. As the result of this com- 
plex physiological process, we come to know that there 
is something beyond our organism ; we know an object 
out of our organism hindering the movement of the 
organ and resisting our energy (a). It is more difiicult 
to determine what is the original perception by sight. 
It must certainly be of a colored surface affecting the 
felt organism. In the famous case operated on by 
Cheselden, a boy born blind had his eyes couched, and 
" when he first saw, he was so far from making any 
judgment about distances that he thought all objects 
whatever touched his eyes (as he expressed it), as what 
he felt did his skin." In the Franz case, the object 
seemed, when the boy's eyes were opened, very near; 
and in the Trinchinetti cases, the girl tried to grasp an 
orange with her hand very near the eye ; then, perceiv- 
ing her error, stretched out her forefinger, and pushed it 
in a straight line slowly until she reached her object (/!»). 
I think it probable that the colored surface perceived 
as affecting the living organism is seen as in the direction 
of the felt and localized sentient organ, neither behind it 



OUR INTUITION OF BODY BY THE SENSES. 65 

nor at the side, but at what distance we know not till 
other senses and a gathered experience come to our 
aid. Such seems to be our original knowledge, received 
through the various senses as inlets. 

But we are not to understand that the mind receives 
sensations and information only from one sense at a 
time. In order to have a full view of the actual state 
of things, we must remember that man, at every in- 
stant of his waking existence, is getting organic feelings 
and perceptions from a number of sensitive sources ; 
possibly at one and the same time from the sense of 
heat, from the sense of taste in the mouth, from the 
sense of hearing, from the sense of sight, — say of a 
portion of our own body and of the walls of the apart- 
ment in which we sit, — and from the muscular sense, — 
say of the chair on which we sit, or the floor on which 
we stand. Our whole conscious state at any given time 
is thus a very complex, or rather a concrete one. There 
is in it at all times a sense of the living body as ex- 
tended, and, I may add, as ours. This is a sense which 
human beings, infant and mature, carry with them every 
instant of their waking existence, perhaps in a low 
state even in their times of sleep. " This consciousness 
of our own corporeal existence is the standard by which 
we estimate in our sense of touch the extension of all 
resisting bodies." ^ Along with this there will always 
be in our waking moments a sense of something extra- 
organic but affecting the organism, such as the surface 
before the eye, or the object which supports us. But 
the vividness of the impression made, or some decisive 
act of the will in order to accomplish a desired end, 
will at times centre the mind's regards in a special 
manner on some one of the objects made known by the 
1 Miiller's Physiology, p. 1081. 



66 PARTICULAR EXAMINATION OF PRIMITIVE TRUTHS. 

senses. Thus, a violent pain will absorb the whole 
mental energy on the organ affected ; or a vivid hue 
will draw out the mind towards the color; or in order 
to some purpose we may fix our regards on the shape 
of the object. By these concentrations of intelligence 
we obtain a more special acquaintance with the nature 
of the objects presenting themselves. It is thus only 
that the special senses fulfil their full function, and 
impart information abiding with us beyond the moment 
when the primary affection is produced. 

Such, approximately and provisionally, seems to be our 
original stock of knowledge acquired by sense. It is as 
yet within vei-y narrow limits, within our frames, and a 
sphere immediately in contact with them. " We per- 
ceive," says Hamilton, " and can perceive nothing but 
what is relative to the organ." We reach a more ex- 
tended knowledge by remembering what we have thus 
obtained, by subjecting it to processes of abstraction and 
generalization, and drawing inferences from it. Our 
information is especially enlarged and consolidated by 
combining the information got from several of the senses, 
which are all intended to assist each other. In particu- 
lar, the two intellectual senses par excellence^ sight and 
the muscular sense, are fitted to aid each other and all 
the other senses. By sight we know merely the object 
as having a colored surface ; by the muscular sense we 
may come to know that this object with a superficies has 
three dimensions and is impenetrable ; we may know 
the object to be the same by our seeing upon it the hand 
which feels the pressure (e). By sight we know not 
how far the colored surface is from our organism ; by 
inferences founded on gathered information from the 
muscular sense we come to know how far it is from us, 
whether an inch or many feet or yards. By the muscu- 



OUR INTUITION OF BODY BY THE SENSES. 67 

lar sense we know solid objects only as pressing them- 
selves immediately on our organism ; by sight we see 
objects — which sight does not declare to be solid, but 
which a combined experience declares must be solid — 
thousands or millions of miles away. By inferences from 
various senses united we know that this taste is from a 
certain kind of food, that this smell is from a rose or 
lily, that this sound is from a human voice or a musical 
instrument. Thus our knowledge, commencing with the 
organism and objects affecting it, may extend to objects 
at a great distance, and clothe them with qualities which 
are not perceived as immediately belonging to them. 
We know that this blue surface, seen indistinctly, is a 
bay of the ocean fifty miles off, and that this brilliant 
spark up in the blue concave is a solid body, radiating 
light hundreds of millions of miles away. 

Let us analyze what is involved in this intuitive 

knowledge. 

11. 

We know the Object as Existing or having Being. 
This is a necessary conviction, attached to, or rather 
composing an essential part of, our concrete cognition of 
every material object presented to us, be it of our own 
frame or of things external to our frame ; whether this 
hard stone, or this yielding water, or even this vapory 
mist or fleeting cloud. We look on each of the objects 
thus presented to us, in our organism or beyond it, as 
having an existence, a being, a reality. Every one un- 
derstands these phrases ; they cannot be made simpler 
or more intelligible by an explanation. We understand 
them because they express a mental fact which every 
one has experienced. We may talk of what we contem- 
plate in sense-perception being nothing but an impres- 
sion, an appearance, an idea, but we can never be made 



68 PARTICULAR EXAMINATION OF PRIMITIVE TRUTHS. 

to give our spontaneous assent to any such statements. 
However ingenious the arguments which may be adduced 
in favor of the objects of our sense-perceptions being 
mere ilkisions, we find, after listening to them, and allow- 
ing to them all the weight that is possible, that we still 
look upon bodies as realities the next time they present 
themselves. The reason is, we know them to be reali- 
ties, by a native cognition which can never be overcome. 

m. 

In our primitive cognitions, we know objects as having 
an Existence Independent of the Contemplative Mind. 
We know the object as separate from ourselves. We do 
not create it when we perceive it, nor does it cease to 
exist because we have ceased to contemplate it. Our 
intuition indeed does not say, as to this being, how or 
when it came to be there, nor whether nor in what cir- 
cumstances it may cease; for information on such topics 
we must go to other quarters. But when the question is 
started, we must decide that this thing had a being prior 
to our perceiving it, — unless indeed it so happened that 
it was produced by a power capable of doing so at the 
very time our senses alighted on it ; and that it will con- 
tinue to exist after we have ceased to regard it, — unless 
indeed something interpose to destroy it. All this is in- 
volved in our very cognition of the object, and he who 
would deny this is setting aside our very primitive know- 
ledge, and he who would argue against this will never be 
able to convince us in fact, because he is opposing a 
fundamental conviction which will work whenever the 
object is presented (c?). 

IV. 

, In our primitive cognition of body there is involved a 

knowledge of Outness or Externality. We know the ob- 



OUR INTUITION OF BODY BY THE SENSES. 69 

ject perceived, be it the organism or the object affecting 
the organism, as not in the mind, but as out of the mind. 
In regard to some of the objects perceived b}-^ us, we may 
be in doubt as to whether they are in the organism or 
beyond it, but we are always sure that they are extra- 
mental. This is a conviction from which we can never be 
driven by any power of will or force of circumstances. 
It is at the foundation of the judgments to be afterwards 
specified as to the distinctions between the self and the 
not-self, the ego and non-ego (js). 



We know the object as Extended. I am inclined to 
think that this knowledge in the concrete is involved 
even in such perceptions as those of smell, taste, hearing, 
and feeling, and the allied affections of temperature and 
titillation. In all these we intuitively know the organ- 
ism as out of the mind, as extended, and as localized. 
At every waking moment we have sensations from more 
than one sense, and we must know the organs affected 
as out of each other and in different places (/). It is 
acknowledged that the primitive knowledge got in this 
way is very bare and limited, and without those per- 
ceived relationships and distinctions which become asso- 
ciated with it in our future life. But imperfect though 
it be, it must ever involve the occupation of space. The 
other two senses furnish more express information, the 
eye giving a colored surface of a defined form, and the 
muscular sense extension in three dimensions. It should 
be noticed that in our knowledge of extra-organic objects, 
whether by the eye or the muscular sense, we know 
them as situated in a certain place in reference to our 
organism, which we have already so far localized and 
distributed in space, and which henceforth we use as a 
centre for direction and distance. 



70 PARTICULAR EXAMINATION OF PRIMITIVE TRUTHS. 

VI. 

We know the Objects as Affecting Us. I have already 
said that we know them as independent of us. This is 
an important truth. But it is equally true and equally 
important that these objects are made known to us as 
somehow having an influence on us. The organic object 
is capable of affecting our minds, and the extra-organic 
object affects the organism which affects the mind. 
Upon this cognition are founded certain judgments as to 
the relations of the objects known to the knowing mind. 
In particular, 

VII. 

In certain, if not in all, of our original cognitions 
through the senses we know the objects as exercising 
Potency or Property. This is denied in theory by many 
who are yet found to admit it inadvertently when they 
tell us that we can know matter only by its properties : 
for what, I ask, are properties but powers to act in a 
certain way ? But still it is dogmatically asserted that 
whatever we may know about material objects, we can 
never know that they have power; we cannot see power, 
they say, nor hear power, nor touch power. In opposi- 
tion to these confident assertions, I lay down the very 
opposite dogma, that we cannot see body, or touch, or 
even hear, or taste, or smell body, except as affecting us ; 
that is, having a power in reference to us. When an 
extra-organic body resists our muscular energy (<?'), what 
is it doing but affecting our organism in a certain way ? 
The very colored surface revealed through sight is 
known to us as affecting, that is, having an influence 
over, our organism. But there is more than this, — the 
organism is known as having power to affect the cogni- 



OUR INTUITION OF BODY BY THE SENSES. 71 

tive self. The muscular effort resisted, the visual organs 
impressed by the colored surface, are known as producing 
an effect on the mind. The organs affected in smell, 
in taste, in temperature, in hearing, in feeling, are all 
known as rousing the mind into cognitive activity. It 
might be further maintained, even in regard to those 
senses which do not immediately reveal anything extra- 
organic, that they seem to point to some unknown cause 
of the affection known ; but it is better to postpone the 
treatment of this question till it can be fully discussed. 
But in regard to the two senses which reveal objects 
beyond the bodily frame, and in regard to all the senses 
as far as they make known our frame to us, it seems 
clear to me that there is an intuitive conviction of po- 
tency wrapped up in all our cognitions (^). 

VIII. 

But it will be vehemently urged that it is most pre- 
posterous to assert that we know all this by the senses. 
Upon this I remark that the phrase hy the senses is 
ambiguous. If by senses be meant the mere bodily 
organism, — the eye, the ears, the nerves, and the brain, 
— I affirm that we know, and can know, nothing by this 
bodily part, which is a mere organ or instrument; that 
80 far from knowing potency or extension, we do not 
know even color, or taste, or smell. But if by the senses 
be meant the mind exei-cised in sense-perception, sum- 
moned into activity by the organism, and contemplating 
cognitively the external world, then I maintain that we 
do know, and this intuitively, external objects as in- 
fluencing us ; that is, exercising powers in reference to 
us. I ask those who would doubt of this doctrine of 
what it is that they suppose the mind to be cognizant in 
sense-perception. If they say a mere sensation or im- 



72 PARTICULAR EXAMINATION OF PRIMITIVE TRUTHS. 

pression in the mind, I reply that this is not consistent 
with the revelation of consciousness, which announces 
plainly that what we know is something extra-mental. 
If they say, with Kant, a mere phenomenon in the sense 
of appearance, then I reply that this too is inconsistent 
with consciousness, which declares that we know the 
thing. But if we know the thing, we must know some- 
thing about it. If they say we know it as having exten- 
sion and form, I grasp at the admission, and ask them to 
consider how high the knowledge thus allowed, involving 
at one and the same time space, and an object occupy- 
ing space, and so much of space. Surely those who ac- 
knowledge this much may be prepared to confess further 
that the mind which in perception is capable of knowing 
an object as occupying space, is also capable of knowing 
the same object as exercising power in regard to us. We 
have only to examine the state of mind involved in all 
our cognitions of matter to discover that there is involved 
in it a knowledge both of extension and power. 

(a) The following is the account given by Miiller (Physiology, 
trans, by Baly, p. 1080): " First, the child governs the movement 
of its limbs, and thus perceives that they are instruments subject to 
the use and government of its internal ' self,' while the resistance 
which it meets with around is not subject to its will, and therefore 
gives it the idea of an absolute exterior. Secondly, the child will 
perceive a difference in the sensations produced according as two 
parts of its own body touch each other, or as one part of its body 
only meets with resistance from without. In the first instance, 
where one arm, for example, touches the other, the resistance is 
offered by a part of the child's own body, and the limb thus givintr 
the resistance becomes the subject of sensation as well as the other. 
The two limbs are in this case external objects of perception, and 
percipient at the same time. In the second instance, the resisting 
body will be represented to the mind as something external and 
foreign to the living body, and not subject to the internal ' self.' 
Thus will arise in the mind of the child the idea of a resistance 
which one part of its own body can offer to other parts of its body, 



OUR INTUITION OF BODY BY THE SENSES. 73 

and at the same time the idea of a resistance offered to its body by 
an absolute ' exterior.' In this way is gained the idea of an external 
world as the cause of sensations." 

(b) The Cheselden case is reported in Phil. Trans. 1728. I have 
noticed other cases in my Psychology, The Cognitive Powers, B. i. C. 
i. 11. Berkeley, Stewart, and Brown hold that color without exten- 
sion is the proper object of sight. Hamilton (^Metaphysics, Lect. 27) 
seems to me to demonstrate that a perception of colors, and conse- 
quently of the difference of colors, necessarily involves the perception 
of a discriminating line, and that a line and figure are modifications 
of extension, so that " a perception of extension is necessarily given 
in the perception of colors." 

(c) If the eye gives lines and figures, it must in a sense give the 
distance (of course not the measured distance) of one point or edge 
of a figure from another. This is a necessary modification of the 
Berkeleyan theory of vision. What the persons whose eyes were 
couched felt as touching their eyes must have been felt as a surface 
like their skin. Though they had no intuitive means of determining 
the distance of the seen surface from their felt and localized organ- 
ism, yet it should be observed, they have extension in the original 
ocular perception, and a preparation for measuring the distance of 
the seen surface with the aid of the muscular sense, more particularly 
as the hand moves over the seen object or moves from one seen 
object to another. In reference to a cognate question, there can be 
no doubt, I think, that persons with a newly imparted power of 
vision would by binocular vision see a solid as different from a sur- 
face, but it does not follow that they would know it to be a solid. 

(rf) The convictions referred to in these paragraphs set aside at 
once the doctrine of Kant, that the mind, in the intuition of sense, 
takes cognizance of phenomena in the sense of appearances. They 
should also modify the doctrine of Hamilton. " Our knowledge of 
qualities or phenomena is necessarily relative, for these exist only as 
they exist in relation to our faculties " (foot-note to Reid, p. 323). 
It is a truism that we can know objects merely as our faculties enable 
us to know them; but the question is, What is the nature and extent 
of the knowledge which our faculties furnish? I admit that what- 
ever external objects we know, we know in a relation to us. But I 
hold that man and his faculties are so constituted as to know things 
(with being) exercising qualities, and to know qualities as existing 
separate from and independent of our cognition of them by our 
faculties. 

(e) The convictions spoken of in these paragraphs set aside all 



74 PARTICULAR EXAMINATION OF PRIMITIVE TRUTHS. 

forms of idealism in sense-perception. Berkeley says that "of un- 
thinking things without us their esse ia percipi, nor is it possible they 
should have any existence out of the minds of thinking things which 
perceive them." "When we do our utmost to conceive the ex- 
istence of external bodies, we are all the while only contemplating 
our own ideas " (Principles of Human Knowledge, ii. xxiv.). I hold, 
that according to our intuitive conviction, the thing which we per- 
ceive must exist before we can perceive it, and that we perceive it 
as an extended thing independent and out of the contemplative 
mind. Fichte represents the external thing as a creation or projec- 
tion of the perceiving mind. But the mind, in knowing the self as 
perceiving, knows that it is an external thing that is perceived, and 
cannot be made to think otherwise. Professor Ferrier bases his 
fabric of demonstrated ideaUsm on the proposition, the object of 
knowledge " always is, and must be, the object with the addition of 
one's self, — object jsZws subject, — thing, or thought, mecum " (Inst. 
of Metaph. Prop. ii.). If this proposition professes to be a statement 
of fact, I deny that the fact of consciousness is properly stated. If 
it professes to be a first truth, I deny that it ought to be assumed in 
this particular form. No doubt we always know self at the same 
time that we know an external object by sense-perception, but we 
know the external object as separate from and independent of self. 
We might as well deny that we know the object at all as deny that 
we know it to have an existence distinct from self. 

(/) Hamilton says, " An extension is apprehended in the appre- 
hension of the reciprocal externality of all sensations " (Appendix to 
Reid, p. 885). Again, " In the consciousness of sensations relatively 
localized and reciprocally external, we have a veritable apprehension 
and consequently an immediate perception of the affected organism, 
as extended, divided, figured," etc. (Ibid. p. 884). Em. Saisset, in 
the article Sens, in Diet, des Sciences Philosophiques, dwells on the 
localization of our sensations in their various organic seats. 

(^r) Locke says that impenetrability, or, as he prefers calling it, as 
having less of a negative meaning, solidity, seems the ' ' idea most 
intimately connected with and essential to body, so as nowhere else 
to be found or imagined, but only in matter;" and he adds, we 
" find it inseparably inherent in body wherever or however modi- 
fied;" and in explaining this, be says of bodies that "they do by an 
insurmountable force hinder the approach of the parts of our hands 
that press them" (Essay, u,iY. 1). Herbert Spencer has done 
great service to philosophy by showing that force is implied in all 
knowledge by the senses. 



CHAPTER III. 

DISTINCTIONS TO BE ATTENDED TO IN OUR COGNITION 

OF BODY. 

It is maintained in this work that all we know by 
the senses is real. But we must be careful to deter- 
mine what we do thus know. In order to defend the 
doctrine of Realism we must draw several important 
distinctions. 

I. 

The difference between Extra Mental and Extra 
Organic perception. All objects perceived are beyond 
the mind, but all are not beyond the body. Probably 
our first perceptions, mingled with sensations, are of our 
bodily frame; for anything we know, there may be tac- 
tile perceptions by the infant in the womb. It is 
certain that in our mature life we have organic affec- 
tions, such as those of the alimentary canal and stomach, 
which exercise no action without the body. We must 
take care not to give the organic affections an extra 
organic validity. 

II. 

The distinction between Sensation and Perception. 
Perception is the knowledge of the object presenting 
itself to the senses, whether in the object or beyond it. 
Sensation is the feeling associated, the feeling of the 
organism. These two always coexist. There is never 
this knowledge without an organic feeling; never a 
feeling of the organism without a cognitive apprehen- 



76 PARTICULAR EXAMINATION OF PRIMITIVE TRUTHS. 

sion of it.i These sensations differ widely from each 
other, as our consciousness testifies ; some of them being 
pleasant, some painful ; others indifferent as to pleasure 
and pain, but still with a feeling. Some we call excit- 
ing, others dull ; some we designate as warm, others as 
cold ; and for most of them we have no name what- 
ever, — indeed they so run into each other that it would 
be difficult to discriminate them by a specific nomencla- 
ture. The perceptions, again, are as numerous and va- 
ried as the knowledge we have by all the senses. Now 
these two always mix themselves up with each other. 
The sensation of the odor mingles with the apprehen- 
sion of the nostrils ; the flavor of the food is joined 
with the recognition of the palate ; the agreeabieness 
or disagreeableness of the sound comes in with the 
knowledge of the ear as affected ; and the feeling organ 
which we localize has an associated sensation. There 
is an organic sensation conjoined even with the knowl- 
edge we have of the extra-organic object affecting our 
muscular sense, or our visual organism. This sensation 
may be little noticed because the attention is fixed on 
the object ; still, it is always there, as we may discover 
by a careful introspection of the combined mental af- 
fection. But while the two ever coexist, sometimes 
with the one prevailing, and sometimes with the other 
predominant, and sometimes with the two nicely bal- 
anced, it is of importance to distinguish them. Every 
man of sense draws the distinction between the music 
and the musical instrument, between the ear-ache and 

^ Reid represents the sensation as being " followed by a perception 
of the object ;" on which Hamilton remarks, " that sensation proper 
precedes perception proper is a false assumption ; they are simulta- 
neous elements of the same invisible energy " (Reid's Collected Writ- 
ings, p. 186. See, also, p. 853). 



DISTINCTIONS IN OUR COGNITION OF BODY. 77 

his ear. The metaphysician should also draw the dis- 
tinction, — indeed, it is essential that he do so. The 
two were given for different ends. Our perceptions are 
the main means of supplying us with knowledge, 
whereas our sensations are meant to increase our en- 
joyment, to stimulate to exertion, to give warning, or 
perhaps to inflict penalties. We must beware, both 
philosophically and practically, of confounding our sen- 
sations and our perceptions, our feelings and our cog- 
nitions. 

III. 
The distinction between Affections in our Bodily 
Frame and the Causes, as we infer, of their production. 
Thus we have an affection of heat in our body, and 
we argue an external cause, which we also call heat. 
All that we know intuitively is the bodily affection. In 
regard to the nature of the cause, this can be discovered 
only by a scientific investigation. This is the case with 
the sense of smell, of taste, of touch, and temperature, 
— and I think also, though with some hesitation, with 
the sense of hearing. The intuitive conviction of cause 
and effect does indeed intimate that there must be a 
cause, but as to where that cause is to be found we must 
trust to experience, which tells us that in some cases 
it is to be found in the organism itself, and in other 
cases in an agent beyond, — such as odorous particles, 
sapid bodies, heat, undulations from a sounding body, or 
a solid object applied to our nerves of touch. In all 
cases the affection of sense and the conviction of cause 
combined are sufficient to prompt us to look round for 
an agent. The senses act as monitors — and most im- 
portant monitors they are — of powers working in our 
bodily frames, and in the physical universe around us. 
I believe that every one of our senses gives us intimation 



78 PARTICULAR EXAMINATION OF PRIMITIVE TRUTHS. 

of powers, — such as floating particles, light, and heat, 
which are among the most powerful agencies conducting 
the processes of the material world. Still, these are 
unknown to our senses, and we become aware of their 
existence merely as causes of known effects. As to 
what odors, sounds, flavors, heat, and, we may add, 
light and colors are, our intuitions are silent, and their 
nature is to be determined by observation, indeed, can 
be determined only by elaborate scientific research. 

This is the proper account of the distinction drawn 
between the Peimary and Secondary Qualities of 
matter, a real distinction, but often confusedly appre- 
hended and expressed. The Secondary Qualities, such 
as heat and flavor, are not, properly speaking, prop- 
erties of body, but affections of our vital frame. The 
causes are to be ascertained by physical investigation. 
To the question so often put, Is or is there not heat in 
that fire ? I answer that the heat is primarily a felt 
affection of my body, and the cause of it, as ascertained 
by science, is a vibration in the ignited body. 

The sense of sight presents peculiar difficulties in this connection. 
It seems to me clearly to look at an extended surface, not part of our 
organism, but affecting it. But what are we to make of color? It 
is the greatest difficulty which the metaphysician meets with in the 
investigation of the senses. The mind knows the perceived object 
to be in its nature extended; but do we also know it as in its very 
nature colored? If so, is there color in the object as there is exten- 
sion ? The following is the solution which I am inclined to offer of 
this difficult subject. The sense of color may be regarded as inter- 
mediate between those senses in which we perceive an extra-organic 
object, and those other senses which reveal merely the organism as 
affected, but whether by agents within or beyond the organism we 
know not. In the sense of color, we primarily know only the organ- 
ism as affected, but we are intuitively led, at the same time, to look 
on what thus affects our organism as not in the organism, but as in 
the extended surface in which it is seen. But beyond this, that is 



DISTINCTIONS IN OUR COGNITION OF BODY. 79 

beyond color being an extra-organic cause of an organic affection, 
we know nothing of its nature by intuition. If this account be cor- 
rect, we see that our sense of color is different, on the one hand, 
from the knowledge of our sensations of heat, or smell, or taste, for 
we do not know whether the causes of these are within or beyond 
the frame, while we do know that color is out of ourselves in a sur- 
face; and different, too, on the other hand, from the knowledge of 
the extended surface and the impenetrability which are revealed 
directly by the sight and muscular sense, whereas we do not know 
what color is. Hence arises, if I do not mistake, that peculiar con- 
viction regarding color which has so puzzled metaphysicians. The 
sense of color combines, in closest union, the sensation and the per- 
ception, the organic affection and the extra-organic. I confess I 
have always fondly clung to the idea that, sooner or later, color will 
be found by physical investigation to have a reality — I do not say 
of what kind. 

IV. 

The distinction between our Original and Acquired 
Perceptions. In standing up for the trustworthiness of 
our perceptions, I always mean our original perceptions 
proceeding from the original principles of the mind, and 
having the sanction of him who gave us our constitution. 
The perceptions acquired by induction and inference will 
have a reality only when the processes have been validly 
conducted. 

I have endeavored in the last chapter to give an ap- 
proximately correct account of what seem to be our orig- 
inal perceptions through the various senses. But to our 
primitive stock we add others, and in doing so we 
employ rules derived from the generalizations of experi- 
ence, and deductive reasoning in applying them to given 
cases. In taste we have originally only a sapid affection 
of the palate, but by experience we ai'e able to declare 
that this particular sensation is produced by water and 
that other by wine. Intuitively we cannot say what 
sort of extra-organic object any smell comes from, but 



80 PARTICULAR EXAMINATION OF PRIMITIVE TRUTHS. 

by observation we have ascertained that this odor comes 
from the rose and that from the lily, and we guess at 
the distance of the object by the strength of the im- 
pression, and at the direction by finding it stronger in 
one nostril than in another. In hearing we ascertain the 
distance by the loudness of the sound, and the direction 
by finding it louder in one of the ears than in the other, 
or, as some suppose, by the affections of the semicircu- 
lar canals, which are usually three in number, and lie 
in different planes. Since the days of Berkeley it has 
been all but universally acknowledged that the percep- 
tion of linear distance from the eye is not an original 
endowment of the sense of sight. 

Now in our original perceptions, when our organism is 
sound and we employ it properly according to its nature, 
there can be no errors, but there may be many human 
mistakes in our acquired perceptions. 

By help of such distinctions we may defend the va- 
lidity of our native convictions through the senses. We 
do not give an extra-organic validity to our organic affec- 
tions. We stand up for a reality corresponding to our 
perceptions proper, but not, therefore, for the associated 
sensations. In regard to what are called the Secondary 
Qualities of matter, we maintain that we perceive the 
organic affections, but the extra-organic causes have to 
be determined by scientific observation. We stand up 
for the trustworthiness of our original but not necessa- 
rily of our acquired perceptions. The senses can be sup- 
posed to deceive us, when the organism and mind are in 
a sound state, only when we overlook one or other or all 
of these distinctions. 

The Eleatics looked upon the senses as deceiving, and appealed to 
the reason as discovering the abiding (rb Sv) amid the fleeting. The 
question arose : Since the senses are delusive, what reason have we 



DISTINCTIONS IN OUR COGNITION OF BODY. 81 

for thinking that the reason is trustworthy? Heracleitus the Dark 
thought that the senses give only the transient, and that man can 
discover nothing more. Plato mediated between the two schools, 
and thought that there were two elements in sense-perception, an 
external and an interna,!: Kai 3 St) eKacrrov elvai (pafxeu xp'^/'*'*, odre rh 
■Kpoa^aWov ovre rb irpo(TfiaW6fj.evov earai, a\Ka fiera^v ti (Kaffrq} ISiov 
yeyov6s- ^ cru Sucxvptcraio &v ois olov aoi (paivfTai eKacrrov xp^f^'^i to'iovtov 
KoX Kvvl Kal OTcaovv ^cocji (Thecet. 28). ' 'Eyivvrfcre yap Sr; 6(c roioT tou. Kal 
Kvvl Kal oTCfolv ^wcj) (^TheCEt, 28). ' EyevvTjcre yap 5r) eK tUv TrpoM/jLoKoyri' 
fxevcov t6 t€ voiouv koJ rh irdcrxou yXvKiTTiTd. re Ka\ aXaOrjcnv, ajj-a (pepofieva 
an<p6Tepa (43). This theory has ever since been maintained by a 
succession of thinkers, including the school of Kant. Unfortunately 
they can give us no rule to enable us to distinguish between what we 
are to allot to subjective and what to the objective factors. Possibly 
the following passage, affirming that science is not in sensations but 
in our reasoning about them, may have suggested the theory of 
Aristotle, which has long divided the philosophic world with that of 
Plato : 'Ej/ fiev &pa to7s iraB-fi/jLacr.v ovkJvi eTTiarfifjiri, eV Se rijJ irepl iKeivwv 
ffvWoyiafjLW (107). 

Aristotle, with his usual judgment and penetration, started the 
right explanation (see De Anima, Lib. in. Chap. i. iii. vi.). He says 
that perception by a sense of things peculiar to that sense is true, or 
involves the smallest amount of error. But when such objects are 
perceived in their accidents (that is, as to things not falling pecu- 
liarly under that sense), there is room for falsehood ; when, for in- 
stance, a thing is said to be white, there is no falsehood, but when 
the object is said to be this or that (if the white thing is said to be 
Cleon), (c/. III. 1, 7) there may be falsehood: 'H ata-Orja-is ruv ixev ISlwi^ 
i,\T1&i)s iffTiv, f) oTi oA.i'yi(rTovexoi'(raT54'ei'5oy SevrepovSe roO (Tvfxl3e^-r\Kevai 
ravra- Kal ivTavOa ■^Sij ivSexerai SiaypevSeaOai on /lev yap Xevvhu, ov 
\fievSeTai, et Se tovto tIi XeuKhv ^ &\a6 ri, xpel Seroi (ill. iii. 12). 'AAA.' 
Sanep rb 6pSv tov j'Siou a\r]des, el S' &vOp(tnTos rh XevKhv ^ jxi), ovk a\7]9es alel 
(in. vi. 7). Aristotle saw that the difficulties might be cleared up 
by attending to what each sense testifies, and separating the asso- 
ciated imaginations and opinions or judgments. The full explana- 
tion, however, could not be given till Berkeley led men to distinguish 
between the original and acquired perceptions of the senses, by 
showing that the knowledge of distance by the eye is an acquisition. 

The views of the Stoics, Epicureans, and Academics may be gath- 
ered from the Academic Quexlions of Cicero. All of tliem sought to 
save the senses by a distinction of some kind. The Stoics represent 



82 PARTICULAR EXAMINATION OF PRIMITIVE TRUTHS. 

the senses as simply satellites and messengers (see Cicero, De Legibus, 
quoted Lipsius' Manud. ad Philos. Stoic, ii. 11), and place above 
them a power of comprehension, KaraKri^^is, which judges the infor- 
mation given by the senses. The Epicureans thought the senses 
never deceive, but then they give us things only as they appear. 
The Academics maintained that the intellect and not sense is the judge 
of truth: " Non esse judicium veritatis in sensibus, mentem volebant 
rerum esse judicem." They held " sensus omnes hebetes et tardos 
esse arbitrabantur, nee percipere ullo modo eas res, quaj subjects 
sensibus viderentur; quae essent aut ita parvae, ut sub sensum cadere 
non possent; aut ita mobiles et concitatae, ut nihil unquam unum esse 
constans" {Acad. Quces. i. 8), and so reality becomes a matter of 
opinion or probability. 

Augustine follows out the views of the Greek philosophers, spe- 
cially those of Aristotle. Thus in his exposition of Categorice Decern 
ex Arislolele Decerptce, v.: "Sunt igitur ilia qute aut percipimus sensi- 
bus, aut mente et cogitatione colligimus. Sensibus tenemus quae aut 
videndo, aut contrectando, aut audiendo, aut gustando, aut odorando 
cognoscimus. Mente, ut cum quis equura, aut hominem, aut quod- 
libet animae viderit, quanquam unum corpus esse respondeat, intelligi 
tamen multis partibus esse concretum." He illustrates his meaning 
elsewhere: " Si quis remum frangi in aqua opinatur, et cum inde 
aufertur integrari; non malum habet internuntium, sed malus est 
judex. Nam ille pro sua natura non potuit aliter sentire, nee aliter 
debuit; si enira aliud est aer, aliud aqua, justum est ut aliter in aere, 
aliter in aqua sentiatur " (Lib. de Ver. Relig. c. 33). The subject 
is discussed Contra Academicos, 24-28. Anselm treats the subject 
in much the same way as Augustine {Dialog, de Verit. vi.). He says 
the error is to be ascribed, not to the senses, but to the judgment of 
the mind: " Falsitas non in sensibus sed opinione." It is the mind 
that imparts the false appearances, as the boy fears the sculptured 
dragon. '" Unde contingit ut sensus interior culpam suam imputet 
sensui exteriori. " 

In modern times, metaphysicians have vacillated between the 
Platonic and Aristotelian theories; some, as Kant and Hamilton, 
making every perception partly subjective, and others ascribing the 
supposed deception to wrong deductions from the matter supplied by 
the senses. The Sensational School of France and T. Brown make 
all external perception an inference from sensations in the mind, 
and refer the mistakes to wrong reasoning. 



CHAPTER IV. 

APPARENT DECEPTION OF THE SENSES. 

Almost all forms of idealism (the system which sup- 
poses certain of our supposed cognitions to be creations 
of the mind), and all forms of scepticism (the system 
which would set aside all our cognitions), plead the de- 
ceitfulness of the senses. Our senses are not to be 
trusted in some things, says the idealist, and we are to 
determine by reason when they are to be trusted. Our 
senses delude us in some things, says the sceptic, and we 
may therefore distrust them in all. It is of vast moment 
to stop these errors at the point at which they flow out, 
by showing that the senses, meaning our original per- 
ceptions through the senses, can all be trusted in regard 
to the special testimony which they furnish. 

But how, it is asked, does the stick in the water, felt 
to be straight by the sense of touch, seem crooked to the 
sense of sight ? The answer is, that the knowledge of 
the shape of an object does not primarily fall under the 
sense of sight, and that when we determine whether a 
stick is or is not straight, by the sense of sight, it is by 
a process of inference in which we have laid down the 
rule that objects that give a certain figure before the eye 
are crooked, — a rule correct enough for common cases, 
but not applicable to those in which the rays of light 
are refracted in passing from one medium to another. 
Why does a boy seem a man, and a man a giant, in a 
mist, whereas, if you clear away the mist, both are in- 
stantly reduced to their proper dimensions? A reply 



84 PARTICULAR EXAMINATION OF PRIMITIVE TRUTHS. 

can easily be given. We have laid down the rule that 
an object seen so dimly must be distant; but an object 
appearing of such dimensions at a distance must be large: 
and the phenomenon is felt to be a deception only by 
those who are not accustomed to move in the mist. 
Why does a mountain, viewed across an arm of the sea, 
seem near, while the same mountain, seen at an equal 
distance beyond an undulated country studded with 
houses and trees, appears very remote ? The answer is, 
not that the eye has deceived us, but that we have made 
a mistaken application of a rule usually correct, that an 
object must be near when few objects intervene between 
us and it ; and it is to be noticed that those who are 
accustomed to look across sheets of water commit no 
such mistakes, for they have acquired other means of 
measuring distance. Again, we have found it true, in 
cases so many that we cannot number them, that when 
we are at rest and the image of an object, say a carriage, 
passes across the vision, the object must be in motion. 
That rule is accurate in all cases similar to those from 
which it was derived ; but it fails the landsman when, 
feeling as if he were at rest in the ship, he infers that 
the shore is moving away from the vessel. In all such 
cases we see that it is not the senses, that is, the natural 
and original perceptions of the senses having the author- 
ity of God, which deceive us, but rules formed or applied 
illegitimately by ourselves. 



CHAPTER V. 

THE ESSENTIAL QUALITIES OF MATTER. 

Locke speaks of the Primary Qualities as being in 
matter in whatever state it may be. Reid speaks of 
them as being directly perceived by us. These two 
marks coincide, presenting the same truth under two dif- 
ferent aspects, the one objective the other subjective. 
They are the essential qualities of matter known in all 
its states, and known at once and intuitively. They are 
two in number. 

I. There are the Qualities of Matter by which it oc- 
cupies Space and is contained in Space, that is, Exten- 
sion. We have this knowledge, I believe, through each 
of our senses ; for in each we know the corresponding 
organs as extended and out of each other, and through 
two of the senses we know objects beyond our bodily 
frame as extended. Hamilton represents extension as a 
necessary constituent of our notion of Matter, and evolves 
it from " two catholic conditions of matter : (1) the oc- 
cupying space, and (2) the being contained in space. 
Of these, the former affords (a) Trinal Extension, expli- 
cated again into (i.) Divisibility, (ll.) Size, containing 
under it Density or Rarity, (m.) Figure ; and (b) Ulti- 
mate Incompressibility; while the latter gives (A) Mo- 
bility, and (b) Situation. Neglecting subordination, we 
have thus eight proximate attributes : 1. Extension ; 2. 
Divisibility ; 3. Size ; 4. Density or Rarity ; 5. Figure ; 
6. Incompressibility absolute ; 7. Mobility ; 8, Situa- 
tion." i 

1 Hamilton's Reid, Note D, p. 848. 



86 PARTICULAR EXAMINATION OF PRIMITIVE TRUTHS. 

II. The Qualities which one body exercises in refer- 
ence to another ; in other words, the Properties or Forces 
of matter. I have expended much labor in vain if I 
have not shown, in previous sections, that here we have 
a necessary conviction. In the visual and locomotive 
senses, we know an extra-organic object as affecting us 
and our organism. All this seems to be involved in our 
perception, and to be a native conviction of the mind, to 
which it is ever prompted, and from which it can never 
be delivered. Not only so, we are ever led to look for 
a producing cause, even of our purely organic affections 
in the ear and palate and nostrils. A knowledge of 
power, and a conviction of power being in exercise, are 
thus involved in our very perceptions through the senses. 

Adhering to these views, we must set aside at once 
two opposite doctrines which have had the support each 
of a number of eminent metaphysicians or metaphysical 
speculators. The one is that matter is known as pos- 
sessing no other quality than extension. This error 
originated with Descartes, and has prevailed extensively 
among those metaphysicians who have felt his influence. 
But the view is opposed to that intuition which repre- 
sents all matter as having and exercising energy. On 
the other side, there are speculators who maintain that 
all the phenomena of matter can be explained by sup- 
posing it to possess potency. This mistake sprang from 
Leibnitz, who supposed that the universe of matter (and 
of mind) was composed of monads having power, and to 
which the mind imparted the relation of space. But 
the dynamical theory of body, so far as it denies the 
existence of space, and body as occupying space, is 
utterly inconsistent with that fundamental conviction, 
of which the mind can never be shorn, which declares 
that the matter which has force must be extended, and 



THE ESSENTIAL QUALITIES OF MATTER. 87 

the force exercised is a force in a body in one part of 
space over another body in a different part of space. 

" L'espace ou le lieu int^rieur et le corps qui est compris en cet 
espace, ne sont diffdrents aussi que par notre pens^e. Car, en effet 
la meme ^tendue en longueur, largeur et profondeur qui constitue 
l'espace constitue le corps" (Des. Med. p. ii. 10). Leibnitz held 
that bodies are endowed with some sort of active force. " Les corps 
sont dou^s de quelque force active." This force may be called life : 
" C'est une reality imniat^rielle, indivisible et indestructible: 11 en 
met -partout dans le corps croyant qu'il n'y a point de partie de la 
masse oil il n'y ait un corps organise, dou^ de quelque perception ou 
d'une maniere d'kme " {Op. p. 694: ed. Erdmann). That he looked 
upon space as a relation will come out below. 



CHAPTER VI. 

OUE INTUITIVE KNOWLEDGE OF SELF OR SPIRIT. 

I. 

It is probable, though it never can be positively 
proven, that the first knowledge acquired by the mind 
is of our own bodily frame, through the 'sensitive organ- 
ism, — a view which does not imply that, apart alto- 
gether from such perceptions, the spirit would not have 
operated. But whatever may be the theory formed on 
this speculative subject, it is certain that whenever or 
however the mind is aroused into an act of intelligence, 
there is always involved in the exercise a knowledge of 
self. Coexisting with every intelligent act of mind there 
is always a self-consciousness. But let it be carefully 
observed that this knowledge is not of an abstract being 
or substance, or of an ego, or of an essence, but of the 
concrete self in the particular state in which it may be, 
with the particular thoughts, sensations, or purposes 
which it may be entertaining at the time. 

The language of Tennyson is often quoted : — 

" The baby new to earth and sky 
Has never thought that this is I." 

There is a truth here, or rather a half truth, which leads 
to a mutilated account of the whole truth. Not till after 
the years of infancy are past does any one entertain an 
idea of self or mind apart from the operations of mind. 
No one is likely to pronounce the judgment till a doubt 
arises or a denial is made. But meanwhile there is a 



OUR INTUITIVE KNOWLEDGE OF SELF OR SPIRIT. 89 

knowledge of self in the midst of all the exercises of the 
mind. All our sensations and feelings, our judgments 
and reasonings, are known by us as our own. My pains 
are of myself and not of any one else. My pleasures are 
pleasures of my own and not of another. Let us observe 
and seek to evolve what is involved in the cognition of 
self. 

II. 

"We know Self as having Being, Existence. The 
knowledge we have in self-consciousness, which is asso- 
ciated with every intelligent act, is not an impression, as 
Hume would say, nor a quality, as certain of the Scottish 
metaphysicians maintain, nor of a phenomenon in the 
sense of appearance, as Kant states it, but of a thing or 
reality. In affirming this we are simply bringing out and 
expressing what is embraced in our primitive cognition. 
No account which falls short of this can be regarded as 
a full exhibition of the facts falling under our eye when 
we look within. If any man maintain that all we can 
discover is a mere idea, impression, phenomenon, or 
quality of an unknown thing, I ask him for his evidence, 
and he must, in replying, call in the internal sense, and 
I can then show him that this sense, or cognitive power 
(for it is not a sense except in an abusive application of 
the term), declares that we know a something, or a thing 
with a positive existence. 

This is a knowledge which cannot be explained, nor 
defined in the sense of being resolved into anything 
simpler, or founded on anything deeper. It is a simple 
element implied in every intelligent act, and not derived 
from any other act or exercise. It is a basis on which 
other knowledge may be reared, and not a superstructure 
standing on another foundation. 

As it is a primitive, so it is a necessary, conviction. 



90 PARTICULAR EXAMINATION OF PRIMITIVE TRUTHS. 

We cannot, by any other supposed knowledge, under- 
mine or set aside this fundamental knowledge. We 
cannot be made by any process of speculation or ratio- 
cination to believe that we have not being. The process 
of reasoning which would set aside this cognition can 
plead no principle stronger than the conviction which we 
have in favor of the reality of self. 

In saying that we know self as possessed of being, we 
do not mean to afl&rm that we know all about self, or 
about our spiritual nature. There are mysteries about 
self, as about everything else we know, sufficient to awe 
' every truly wise man into humility. All that is meant 
is, that, whatever may be unknown, we always know 
being whenever we know any of the objects presented 
to us from within or from without. 

III. 

We know Ourselves as Persons. Our perception of 
personality is closely connected with our knowledge of 
being, but there is more in personality than in being. 
We know material objects as having existence, but we 
have a special apprehension in regard to self beyond 
what we have in regard to material objects. Like every 
other simple perception, it cannot be defined, but it may 
be brought out to separate view by abstraction ; and con- 
sciousness (with memory) will recognize it as one of the 
cognitions which it had seen before in company with 
others. We express this conviction when we say we are 
persons. The abstract idea is one not likely to be spon- 
taneously formed. The infant, the child, the savage, are 
not in the habit of making any such analysis of conscious- 
ness, nor are the great body of mankind at the trouble of 
asserting their own existence. Such a proposition, with 
its subj,ect and predicate, will be formed only after phi- 



OUR INTUITIVE KNOWLEDGE OF SELF OR SPIRIT. 91 

losophy has taken a shape, — probably only after sophis- 
try and scepticism have been attacking our original con- 
victions. It is only the metaphysician who will ever take 
the trouble of affirming that he exists, and the wise me- 
taphysician will refrain from going further, and trying to 
prove that he exists. 

Yet it is a conviction which the mind ever carries 
with it; it is one of the high characteristics of humanity. 
Inanimate matter is without it. The brute shows that 
he is tending towards it, yet can have it only in an 
incipient degree. It is an essential characteristic of the 
man's individuality, and is one of the main elements in 
his sense of independence, in his sense of freedom, in his 
sense of responsibility. As possessing it, man feels that 
he is independent of physical nature ; independent of all 
creature intelligences ; independent, in a sense, of God, 
against whom, alas! he may rebel, and to whom he must 
for certain give an account. It is a conviction to be 
used and not abused. It would certainly be perverted 
were it to seduce man to isolate himself from the objects 
around him, to try to become independent of the provi- 
sions made in physical nature to aid his weakness, or to 
separate himself from his brothers or sisters of human- 
ity ; and still more, were it to tempt him to rebel agairtst 
God. It is properly used when, under the guidance of 
moral law, it is leading him, not to be ever floating on 
with the stream, but at times to be standing up in the 
midst of it and acting as a breakwater in its current, or 
as a martyr seeking to stem the tide of corruption, or, 
Prometheus -like, rising up, not against the true God, 
but against the false gods who rule in Olympus. Powers 
hostile to the progress of humanity have sought to sub- 
due this principle. Absolutism would crush it, and 
make man live for some slavish end, political or ecclesi- 



92 PARTICULAR EXAMINATION OF PRIMITIVE TRUTHS. 

asttcal. Pantheism would dissipate it till man loses all 
individuality, and becomes relaxed, as he moves listlessly, 
in a hot and hazy atmosphere. It is this conviction 
which makes man feel that he is not a mere bubble on 
the surface of being, blown up in one chance agitation, 
and about to be absorbed in another. It keeps man 
from being lost, — lost in physical nature, lost in the 
crowd of human beings, or lost in the ocean of being ; 
he is, after all and amid all, a person. As such he has 
a part to act, an end to serve, a work to do, a destiny to 
work out, and an account to render. 

The cognitions which have been unfolded in this 
chapter form, when memory begins to be exercised, the 
ground of our recognition of our personal identity, and 
lead us to believe in a self which abideth amid all 
changes of thought, and mood, and feeling. This sub. 
ject will be resumed by us under the head of Primitive 
Judgments (a). 

IV. 

We know Self as not depending for its existence on 
our Observation of it. Of course we can know self only 
when we know self; our knowledge of self exists not 
till we have the knowledge, and it exists only so long as 
we have the knowledge. But when we come to know 
self, we know it as already existing, and we do not look 
on its continued existence as depending on our recogni- 
tion of it. 

V. 

We know Self as being in itself an Abiding Exist- 
ence. Not that we are to stretch this conviction so far 
as to believe in the self-existence of mind, or in its 
eternal existence. We believe certainly in the perma- 
nence of mind independent of our cognition of it, and 
amidst all the shiftings and variations of its states. Yet 



OUR INTUITIVE KNOWLEDGE OF SELF OR SPIRIT. 93 

this does not imply that there never was a time when 
self was non-existing. For aught this conviction says, 
there may have been a time when self came into exist- 
ence : another conviction assures that when it did, it 
must have had a cause. It must be added, that this 
conviction does not go the length of assuring us that 
mind must exist forever, or that it must exist after the 
dissolution of the body. Intuition does indeed seem to 
say that, if it shall cease to exist, it must be in virtue 
of some cause adequate to desti'oy it; and it helps to 
produce and strengthen the feeling which the dying man 
cherishes when he looks on the soul as likely to abide 
when the body is dead. But as to whether the dissolu- 
tion of the bodily frame is a sufficient cause of the de- 
cease of the soul, — as to whether it may abide when 
the bodily frame is disorganized, — this is a question to 
be settled not altogether by intuition, but by a number 
of other considerations, and more particularly by the 
conviction that God will call us into judgment at last, 
and is most definitely settled, after all, by the inspired 
declarations of the Word of God. But it is pleasant to 
observe that there is an original conviction altogether in 
unison with this derivative belief, a conviction leading us 
to look on self as permanent, unless there be a cause 
working adequate to its dissolution. 

According to the views presented under these heads, 
the existence of self is a position to be assumed, and not 
to be proven. It does not need proof, and no proof 
should be offered ; no mediate proof could be clearer 
than the truth which it is brought to support. 

VI. 
"We know Self as exercising Potency. We have seen 
that we know it as having being ; but we know it further 



94 PARTICULAR EXAMINATION OF PRIMITIVE TRUTHS. 

as having active being. We know it as acting, we know 
it as being acted on, we know it as the source of action. 
Even in sense-perception we know it as being acted on 
from without ; nay, we know it as itself acting in pro- 
ducing the result. So far as we know objects acting 
on it, we know it as capable of being influenced ; in 
other words, as having a capacity of a particular descrip- 
tion. So far as we know it acting in producing changes 
in itself or other things, we know it as a potency, as 
having power. When we recollect, when we fix the 
thoughts on a particular object, when we fondly dwell 
on a particular scene, we are exercising power, and by 
consciousness we know that we are doing so. When in 
consequence of coming to know of events bearing upon 
us personally, — say of some blessing about to descend, 
or calamity about to befall, — we i^ejoice or grieve, an 
effect is experienced. This conscious potency is espe- 
cially felt in all exercises of the will, whether it be di- 
rected to the mental action which we wish to stay or 
quicken, or the bodily organism which we propose to 
move. I demur, indeed, to the view maintained by 
some philosophers of eminence, that our idea of power 
is obtained exclusively from the consciousness of the 
power of will over the muscles. But I am persuaded 
that our most vivid conviction of power is derived from 
the influence of the will both on bodily and mental 
action, and that the influence of the will on the organ- 
ism is what enables us to connect mental with bodily 
action (^). 

But here it will be necessary to offer an explanation 
to save ourselves from obvious difficulties, which many 
have not seen their way to overcome. We shall find, 
under another head, that while we believe intuitively 
that every effect has a cause, we do not know by intui- 



OUR INTUITIVE KNOWLEDGE OF SELF OR SPIRIT. 95 

tion what the cause is apart from experience ; and that 
while we are convinced that the cause produces the 
effect, it is only by experience we know what the effect 
is. It follows that we do not know intuitively what or 
how many powers must concur to produce a given effect. 
This qualification will be found to have a great signifi- 
cance imparted to it by the circumstance to be after- 
wards noticed, that in order to most creature effects 
there is need of a concurrence of causes, or of a concause. 
"When I will to move my arm, I know that the will is 
one of the elements in producing the effect, but I do not 
know, till physiology tells me, how many others must 
cooperate. It follows that one of the elements of a 
complex cause may act and no effect follow, because one 
part of the concause is absent. I may will to take a 
cheerful view of everything, and yet not be able, 
owing to the rise of gloomy thoughts. I may will to 
move my arm, and yet the arm may not move, because 
paralysis has cut off the concurrence of the organism. 
This subject will again come before us under various 
aspects. 

VII. 

We know the Knowing Mind to be different from the 
Material Object known, whether this be the organism as 
affected or the object affecting it. Not that we know 
by intuition wherein the difference lies ; not that we are 
in a position to say whether they may not, after all, 
have points of resemblance, and a mutual dependence, 
and a reciprocal influence ; on these points our only 
guide must be a gathered experience. But in every act 
in which we know a bodily object, we know it to be 
different from self, and self to be different from it. This 
is a conviction which we can never lose, and of which no 
sophistry can deprive us. We carry it with us at all 



96 PARTICULAR EXAMINATION OF PRIMITIVE TRUTHS. 

times, and wherever we go. It makes it impossible for 
any man to confound himself with the universe, or the 
universe with him. Man may mistake one external ob- 
ject for another, but it is not possible that he should 
mistake an external object for himself, or identify him- 
self with any other object. This conviction is thus a 
means, as shall be shown later in the treatise, of deliver- 
ing us from the more common forms of idealism, and 
from every form of pantheism. 

VIII. 

We know Self in every One of its States, as these 
pass before self-consciousness. And herein lies an im- 
portant difference between the knowledge we have of 
mind, and the greater portion of the knowledge we have 
acquired of the material universe. The knowledge which 
we have of matter by intuition is extremely limited. 
What we thus know, indeed, is supremely valuable, as 
the ground on which we erect all our other information ; 
still it is in itself very narrow, being confined to an 
acquaintance with our organism as extended and as 
exercising an influence on the mind, and to objects 
immediately in contact with it. The greater part even 
of the knowledge which we have of our organism, and of 
objects in contact with it, is derivative ; and there is a 
process of inference in all that we know of objects at a 
distance, — of sun, moon, stars, of hills, rivers, valleys, 
and of the persons, and countenances, and conversations 
of our friends. But in regard to our own minds, we 
know all the individual facts directly and intuitively. 
We gaze at once on the mind thinking, imagining, feel- 
ing, resolving. In this view it may be safely said that 
we know more of certain of the states and of the action 
of the mind than we know of the whole material uni- 



OUR INTUITIVE KNOWLEDGE OF SELF OR SPIRIT. 97 

verse, even in this age of advanced science. It should 
be added, in order to save the remark from appearing to 
some incredibly extravagant, that while we thus know 
spontaneously so much about the workings of the mind, 
the majority of men think far more about their objec- 
tive than their subjective knowledge. 

(a) "This self-personality, like all other simple and immediate 
presentations, is indefinable; but it is so because it is superior to 
definition. It can be analyzed into no simpler elements, for it is 
itself the simplest of all ; it can be made no clearer by description 
or comparison, for it is revealed to us in all the clearness of an 
original intuition, of which description and comparison can furnish 
only faint and partial resemblances " (Mansel, Prolegomena Loglca, 
p. 129 ; see, also, Metaphysics). It was the greatest of all the over- 
sights of Kant that he did not give personality a place among the 
intuitions of the mind, to which it is entitled quite as much as space 
and time. Held in by no primary belief in personality, those who 
came after, such as Fichte, Schelling, and Hegel, wandered out into 
a wide waste of Pantheism. Taking with them no belief in the per- 
sonality of self, they never could reach personality in God. 

It has been keenly disputed how we are to understand the " Co- 
gito, ergo sum ' ' of Descartes. Are we to regard it as a process 
of reasoning ? If it be so, it is either a petitio principii, or its 
conclusiveness may be doubted. If the cogito be understood as 
embracing ego, that is, be understood as ego cogito, then the ego is 
evidently involved in it, is in fact assumed. If it means anything 
short of this, then it might be difficult to establish the accuracy of 
the inference ; thus, if the cogito does not embrace the ego, it is 
not clear that the conclusion follows. Or are we to regard the 
statement as a sort of primitive judgment, not implying mediate 
reasoning or a middle term ? Taken in this sense, I would reckon 
that the connection between thought and existence is involved in 
our knowledge of self as existing, rather than that the knowledge 
of self issues from the perception of the connection between thought 
and personal existence. Or are we to look on the expression as 
simply a mode of stating an assumption ? In this case, the word 
ergo, the usual symbol of inference, comes in awkwardly ; and be- 
sides, the truth to be assumed is not the complex judgment, cogito, 
ergo sum, but the fact revealed at once to consciousness of ego 



98 PARTICULAR EXAMINATION OF PRIMITIVE TRUTHS. 

cogUans. This primitive cognition may be the ground of a number 
of judgments, but it is to reverse the order of things entirely to 
make any one of these judgments the ground of the cognitions. 

Kant has a powerful criticism of the " Cogito, ergo sum," con- 
sidered as an argument, in his Paralogismen in the Kritik. See the 
subject discussed by M. Cousin, Prem : Ser : tome 1. 

In answering the objections of Gassendi, Descartes says : " Cum 
advertimus nos esse res cogitantes, prima quaedam notio est quae et 
nullo syllogismo concluditur ; neque etiam quis dicit ' Ego cogito, 
ergo sum, sive existo,' existentiam ex cogitatione per syllogismum 
deducit, sed tanquam rem per se notam simplici mentis intuitu 
agnoscit." 

Buffier gives the correct account with his usual clearness : " C'est 
par une meme perception de notre ame que nous ^prouvons le senti- 
ment intime et de notre pensee et de notre existence " (Buffier, 
Prem. Ve'r. p. i. c. i.). 

The Scottish School generally maintains that we do not know 
mind and body, but only the qualities of them. Reid indeed says, 
" Every man is conscious of a thinking principle, or mind, in him- 
self " (Collected Writings, p. 217). Campbell, in his Philosophy o/ 
Rhetoric, speaks of consciousness being concerned with " the exist- 
ence of mind itself, and its actual feelings," etc. (Book i. Chap. 
V. But this language is not free from ambiguity. Reid says 
that " sensation suggests to us both a faculty and a mind, and not 
only suggests the notion of them, but creates a belief of their ex- 
istence ; " and he defends the use of the word <' suggest," which I 
reckon a very unfortunate one in such an application (Collected 
Writings, pp. 110, 111). This view is carried out and elaborated by 
D. Stewart: "It is not matter or body which I perceive by my 
senses, but only extension, figure, color, and certain other qualities, 
which the constitution of my nature leads me to refer to something 
which is extended, figured, and colored. The case is precisely 
similar with respect to mind. We are not immediately conscious of 
its existence, but we are conscious of sensation, thought, and voli- 
tion, operations which imply the existence of something which feels, 
thinks, and wills" (Elem. Vol. i. p. 46; see also Vol. ii. p. 41, and 
Phil, Essays, p. 58). 

Kant holds that the inner sense gives no intuition of the soul as 
an object. " Der innere Sinn, vermittelst dessen das Gemiith sich 
selbst, oder seinen inneren Zustand anschaut, giebt zwar keine 
Anschauung von der Seele selbst, als einem Object " (Kr. d. r. V. 



OUR INTUITIVE KNOWLEDGE OF SELF OR SPIRIT. 99 

p. 34). He speaks of the subject envisaging itself, not as it is but as 
it appears : " Da es denn sich selbst anschaut, nicht wie es sich 
unmittelbar selbstthatig vorstellen wiirde, sondern nach der Art wie 
es von innen afEcirt wird, folglich wie es sich erscheint, nicht wie es 
ist " {Zw. Aufg. p. 718). He says that by the inner sense we know 
the subject self as phenomenon, and not as it is in itself: " Was die 
innere Anschauung betrifft, unsei' eigenes Subject nur als Erschei- 
nung, nicht aber nach dem, was es an sich selbst ist, erkennen " 
(^Ihid, p. 850). Dr. Mansel has done great service to philosophy by 
maintaining so clearly and resolutely, in his Prolegomena Logica and 
Metaphysics, that we intuitively know self. "I am immediately 
conscious of myself seeing and hearing, willing and thinking" {Prol. 
Log. p. 129). Hamilton speaks of our being conscious every moment 
of our existence, and of the ego as a "self-subsistent entity" (^Metaph. . 
Lect. 19). 

(i) It can be shown that Locke consistently or inconsistently 
states that we know power as being in body, but especially in mind. 
" Bodies by our senses do not afford us so clear and distinct an idea 
of active power as we have from reflection on the operations of our 
own mind." In deriving our idea of Power from Sensation and Re- 
flection he supposes the mind to be actively and intelligently exer- 
cised. " Whatever change is observed, the mind must collect a 
power somewhere to make that change " (Essay, ii. xxi. 4). But 
Locke has omitted to inquire what it is in the mind which insists 
that it must collect a cause wherever there is a change. 

Hamilton admits all I am pleading for. "I know myself as a 
force in energy, the not-self as a counter-force in energy " (Note D, 
p. 666, of Ap. to Reid). And again we have a perceptive power of 
the secundo primary quality of resistance in an extra-organic force 
as an immediate cognition " (p. 883). Is this statement an essential 
part of his doctrine, or an incidental admission? If part of his sys- 
tem, it should modify the view he has given elsewhere of our convic- 
tion of power as being a mere impotency (see Appendix to Discuss.). 
If it be inadvertent, it is a proof that truth will come out of honest 
men in spite of the errors of their system. 



CHAPTER VII. 

SUBSTANCE. 



Sir W. Hamilton remarks that the word " substance " 
may be " viewed as derived from suhsistendo, and as 
meaning ens per se subsistens (ouo-ta in Greek) : or it 
may be viewed as the basis of attributes, in which sense 
it may be regarded as derived from substando, and id 
quod substat accidentibus; like the Greek vTroo-Tao-is, 
viroK€ifji.evov. In either case it will, however, signify the 
same thing viewed in a different aspect." With this 
latter statement I cannot concur. In the first of these 
senses there is such a thing as substance, and its charac- 
teristics can be specified. But I can see no evidence 
whatever for the existence of any such thing as a sub- 
stance in the other sense, that is, as a substratum lying 
in and beyond, or standing under, all that comes under 
our immediate knowledge. There is no topic on which 
there has been a greater amount of unsatisfactory lan- 
guage employed than on this. We know, it is said, only 
qualities, but we are constrained by reason, or by com- 
mon sense, to believe in a something in which they 
inhere. Or qualities, it is said, fall under sense, while 
substance is known by vovs, or reason. Others, proceed- 
ing on these admissions, maintain that, qualities alone 
being known, we may doubt whether there is such a 
thing as substance, and may certainly affirm that we can 
never know it. Now in opposition to all this style of 
thinking and writing, which has prevailed to so great an 



SUBSTANCE. 101 

extent since the days of Locke, I maintain that we never 
know qualities without also knowing substance. Quali- 
ties as qualities distinct from substance are as much un- 
known to us as substance distinct from qualities. We 
know both in one concrete act. 

All that the metaphysician can do in regard to sub- 
stance is to show that our cognition of it is original and 
fundamental, and to evolve what is contained in the cog- 
nition. He should not attempt to prove how it is so and 
so (the 8l6tl of Aristotle), but he may show that it is so 
and so (the otl of Aristotle). He could not give the 
dimmest idea of it to one who had not already the 
knowledge, but he may separate it by analysis from the 
other cognitions with which it is combined, and make it 
stand out distinctly to the view. He may so weigh and 
measure it as to show its extent and boundary, and de- 
liver it from those crudities in which speculators have in 
crusted it. The following is the best analysis I am able 

to furnish. 

11. 

In all knowledge of substance there is involved Be- 
ing or Existence, not of being in the abstract, but of 
something in being. This we have seen is an essential 
element in our cognition, both of mind and body. The 
mind starts with knowledge, and with the knowledge of 
things as existing. This is the foundation, the necessary 
foundation, of all other exercises. If the mind did not 
begin with knowledge, it could not end with knowledge. 
In particular, if it had not knowledge in the concrete, it 
never could reach knowledge in the abstract. If there 
were not a knowledge of things in the premises with 
which we set out, there never could be knowledge in the 
conclusion. But having knowledge, obtained by intui- 
tion, to set out with, we find that when we proceed 



102 PARTICULAR EXAMINATION OF PRIMITIVE TRUTHS. 

legitimately — that is, according to the laws of thought 
— in our discursive exercises, we have always reality in 
the conclusion. 

Those who assert that substance has a substratum^ a 
something standing under it, have caught a glimpse of a 
truth which however they have not fully comprehended. 
All substance has a Being which combines and gives a 
unity to what is embraced in it. 

III. 

In all knowledge of substance there is involved Ac- 
tive Power. We cannot know self, or the mind that 
knows, except as active, that is, exerting power, or as 
being affected. Nor can we know material objects ex- 
cept as exercising or suffering an influence, — that is, a 
certain kind of power. They become known to us as 
having a power either upon ourselves or upon other ob- 
jects, and we express this when we say that we know 
matter by its properties. 

This is a doctrine which has been opposed by a large 
school of metaphysicians that have felt directly or in- 
directly the influence of Descartes, who represented ex- 
tension as the essence of matter. This oversight has 
marred their whole speculations, and landed them in 
innumerable difficulties. For, not finding power in our 
original cognitions, they have either with the sceptic 
Hume denied that we have any such cognition, or with 
Kant they have made it a form which the mind imposes 
on objects. Still a large amount of authority can be 
pleaded in behalf of the doctrine, that power is involved 
in our idea of substance. It is the expressed view of 
Locke. It is maintained by Leibnitz with all the inge- 
nuity of his speculative genius. Even Kant acknowledges 
(though, from the subjective character which he ascribes 



SUBSTANCE. ' 103 

to our intuitive convictions, he can turn it to no profit- 
able account) that cause is involved in our idea of sub- 
stance. It has been incidentally admitted by many who 
have theoretically denied it. 

IV. 

There is involved in our knowledge of substance a 
conviction of its having a Peemanence. This propo- 
sition must be very guardedly stated. By being loosely 
and inaccurately announced, it has led to very erroneous 
and dangerous doctrines. But there is a truth here, if 
we could only properly apprehend and express it. A 
substance is not a spectre which appeared when we 
began to see it, and which may cease to exist when we 
have ceased to view it. This conviction is at the basis 
of the belief in the abiding nature of every existing 
thing, amid all the changes which it may undergo. 
However a piece of matter may be beat or cut mechan- 
ically, we do not believe it to be destroyed. However it 
may be evaporated or decomposed by heat or chemical 
processes, we are not convinced that it is annihilated. 
When the moisture on the earth disappears, we do not 
therefore conclude that it has vanished into nothing ; we 
look for it in a new form, and our expectation is gratified 
when we discover it in the vapor of tne atmosphere or 
the cloud. When fuel is put on the fire it gradually dis- 
appears from the view, but we inquire for it elsewhere, 
and find it in the ashes and in the smoke. Our convic- 
tion of the abiding nature of self is still more deeply 
rooted and fixed. We believe in its continuance amid 
all the changes of thought and sensation, mood and feel- 
ing, lethargy and activity. 

But while there is all this in our apprehension of 
substance, there is not more than this, and the errors 



104 PARTICULAR EXAMINATION OF PRIMITIVE TRUTHS. 

have arisen from supposing that there is more. In par- 
ticular, our conviction does not require us to believe 
either in the necessary existence of every substance, or 
in its indestructibility. Our intuition does not say 
whether it has or has not been created, whether it does 
or does not need the Divine power to maintain and 
uphold it, whether it may or may not be destroyed. It 
does not entitle us to affirm that matter must have 
existed forever, or must, if formed, have been fashioned 
out of preexisting materials. Nor does it say how long 
it has existed, or how long it will exist. An analogous 
intuitive conviction — that of cause — says that if pro- 
duced, it must have been produced by a cause ; that if 
destroyed, it must be by a power independent of itself. 
Hence we cannot assert positively, when we see a sub- 
stance, say a piece of burned coal, disappearing from 
our view, that it must still exist, for in the operation of 
combustion there may have been a power to destroy it ; 
all that we can affirm is, that the substance did not van- 
ish of itself. All that our intuition guarantees is, that 
in itself substance has permanence, and that, if destroyed, 
it must be by something ah extra. 

V. 

According to the account now given, the Conscious 
Self or Spirit must be a substance. We know it as 
having being, we know it as having power and perma- 
nence. While it has these, it is to be studiously noticed 
that we do not know it to have all, or indeed any, of 
these independently. For aught our intuition says, it 
may be dependent for all of these on the creative power 
or concurrent power of God. Not only so, it may, for 
anything our intuition intimates, be dependent for some 
of these on its association with the bodily organism in 



SUBSTANCE. 105 

this present state of things. If we wish to settle these 
questions, we must look to other circumstances and con- 
siderations. 

Many metaphysicians have felt greater difficulty in 
allowing that Matter is a substance. But, explaining 
substance as has been done in this section, it is entitled 
to be so regarded. It, too, has being, power, and endu- 
rance. We can deny this only by refusing to follow 
our native convictions. But in standing up for the sub- 
stantial nature of body, it is still more necessary than 
in the case of spirit to bear in mind the qualifications 
under which we make the statement. We cannot affirm 
of matter that it has derived its characteristics from no 
source independent of itself. Nor can we declare of it 
that it can subsist of itself, and independent of the co- 
operating power of mind, that is, the Divine Mind. We 
are stretching intuition altogether beyond its province 
if we make it pronounce oracular decisions on any such 
questions. 

But are mind and matter different substances? I 
reply that there are certain positions on this subject 
which can be defended against all opposition. First, in 
the cognition of the knowing mind, which ever coexists 
with our cognition of matter, we always know the two 
to be different. When we look at these hills we have 
ever an accompanjang cognition of self as looking at 
the hills, and we know the hills to be different from self, 
and self to be different from the hills. Secondly, we 
know that the very things by which substance is charac- 
terized — existence, potency, and permanence — are not 
the same in the case of mind and body. Thus, the 
being of mind is not the same with that of matter, nor 
are the powers of mind the same with those of matter, 
nor does the permanence of body depend on human beings 



106 PARTICULAR EXAMINATION OF PRIMITIVE TRUTHS. 

observing it, nor can it be shown that the permanence 
of mind depends on the permanence of the bodily frame. 
With these proofs or presumptions in our favor, we may 
surely throw the onus prohandi of proving that they are 
the same substance on our opponents. But thirdly, all 
attempts to resolve mind into matter, or matter info 
mind, have utterly failed. If we deny that matter has 
an existence independent of the contemplative mind, we 
are trampling on one of the intuitions of our nature. 
Those who resolve mind into matter always overlook 
the very essential qualities of the knowing, the con- 
scious, the thinking, the moral, the responsible soul. 
We are thus entitled, from all we can know of substance, 
to declare them to be different substances. As to 
whether they may not, after all, have some unity in the 
view of higher intelligences, who take a deeper view of 
substance, this is a question which we need not start, for 
we cannot settle it ; the alleged unity must be such that 
"we can never discover nor comprehend it. It is enough 
for us that they are different substances in all the char- 
acteristics of substance known to us. 

By the limitations drawn above, we are saved from certain per- 
nicious consequences which were supposed to follow from the doc- 
trine of Descartes. According to him, a substance is that which 
subsists of itself, which has no need of anything else in order to 
its existence.^ Proceeding on this definition, Spinoza labored to 
show that there was and could be only one substance, of which 
everything is an attribute or a mode. The school of Descartes 
sought to save themselves from this pantheistic consequence by 

1 " Per substantiam nihil aliud possumus, quam rem quae eta exis- 
tet, ut nulla alia re indigeat ad existendum. Et quidem substantia 
quse nulla plane re indigeat, unica tantum potest intellige nempe 
Deus. Alias vero omnes non nisi ope concursus Dei existere posse 
percipimus " (Prin.: Phil: i. 51.) He speaks of created substances, 
" quod sint res quae solo Dei concursus egeunt ad existendum," lb. 52. 



SUBSTANCE. 107 

various devices. To me it appears that we must amend the defi- 
nition of Descartes, and reject the definition of Spinoza, and then 
all the conclusions founded on them must fall to the ground. " I 
understand," says Spinoza, " by substance, that which is in itself 
and conceived by itself ; that is to say, that of which the concept 
can be formed without having need of the concept of any other 
thin;;." ^ There is a whole ao-gregate of things iumbled in this defi- 

O DO o o J 

nition. That which is in itself is one thing ; that which is con- 
ceived by itself is another thing, which is not necessarily the same as 
that which is given in explanation, viz., that of which a concept 
can be formed without having need of the concept of any other 
thing. I object to our conviction in regard to substance being 
called a concept, a phrase denoting an abstract or general notion 
formed by a discursive process of the understanding : the conviction 
is an intuition. The intuition says of every substance that it is a 
thing or reality, but it does not say whence the reality has pro- 
ceeded. It says that substance has power, but it does not say 
whence that power. No doubt a substance is a thing known (not 
merely conceived) in itself, but the same may be said of space and 
time, and everything apprehended intuitively. Having removed 
this definition out of the way, as not the expression of our intuitive 
knowledge, we leave the whole pantheism of Spinoza without a 
foundation. I am certain that our native conviction as to substance 
gives no countenance to pantheism of any kind. Our intuition says 
that substance has being, but it does not say that it is underived, 
or whence it is derived. It says that it has permanence, but does 
not say that it has not been created and that it cannot be destroyed. 
"If any one will examine himself concerning his notion of pure 
substance in general, he will find that he has no other idea of it at 
all, but only a supposition of he knows not what support of such 
qualities which are capable of producing simple ideas in us ; which 
qualities are commonly called accidents" (Locke, Essay, ii. xxiii. 
23). His view is thus fully expounded in his Letter to Sdllingjieet : 
" Your Lordship well expresses it, — We find that we can have tw true 
conception of any modes or accidents, but we must conceiie a substratum 
or subject wherein they are: i. e. that they cannot exist or subsist of 
themselves. Hence the mind perceives their necessary connection 

^ " Per substantiam intelligo id quod in se est et per se percipitur 
hoc est id eujus conceptus non indiget conceptu alternus rei, a quo 
formari debeat." 



108 PARTICULAR EXAMINATION OF PRIMITIVE TRUTHS. 

with inherence, or being supported; which being a relative idea, 
superadded to the red color in a cherry, or to thinking in a man, 
the mind frames the correlative idea of a support. For I never 
denied that the mind could frame to itself ideas of relation, but 
have showed the quite contrary in my chapters about relation. But 
because a relation cannot be founded on nothing, or be the relation 
of nothing, and the thing here related as a supporter or support is 
not represented to the mind by any clear and distinct idea, therefore 
the obscure, indistinct, vague idea of thing or something is all that 
is left to be the positive idea which has the relation of a support or 
substratum to modes or accidents ; and that general undetermined 
idea of something is by the abstraction of the mind derived also 
from the simple ideas of Sensation and Reflection ; and thus the 
mind, from the positive simple ideas got by sensation or reflection, 
comes to the general relative idea of substance, which without these 
positive simple ideas it could never have." I have quoted this 
passage because it lets us see fully what Locke's precise theory is, 
and what are its defects. The mind gets all its ideas from sen- 
sation and reflection, but in comparing ideas it discovers necessary 
relations. Among these is substance, of which the idea is very 
obscure. Still the mind is led to suppose that there is such a thing 
acting as a support or substratum. 

Berkeley admits the existence of all that we perceive : " That 
what I see, hear, and feel doth exist, that is to say, is perceived by 
me, I no more doubt than I do of my own being." But he adds : 
" I do not see how the testimony of sense can be alleged as a proof 
of the existence of anything which is not perceived by sense " 
(Prin. Hum. Know. 40). In particular, he is not satisfied that there 
is a material substratum to what we perceive or a support of it. " It 
is evident support cannot here be taken in its usual or literal sense, 
as when we say that pillars support a building : in what sense, there- 
fore, must it be taken ? If we inquire into what the most accurate 
philosophers declare themselves to mean by material substance, we 
shall find them acknowledge they have no other meaning annexed to 
those sounds but the idea of being in general, together with the rela- 
tive notion of its supporting accidents " (16, 17). Now Berkeley is 
right in saying that we are not required to allow the existence of 
more than we perceive. But (1) he is wrong in maintaining that 
we can perceive nothing more than ideas in our own minds. " When 
we do our utmost to conceive the existence of external bodies, we 
are all the while only contemplating our own ideas " (23). Then 



SUBSTANCE. 109 

(2) he errs in not unfolding how much is comprised in the object as 
perceived by us; we perceive body as having being, power, and 
existence without us and independent of us. " It will be urged that 
thus much at least is true, to wit, that we take away all corporeal 
substances. To this my answer is, that if the word substance be 
taken in the vulgar sense for a combination of sensible qualities, 
such as extension, solidity, weight, and the like, this we cannot be 
accused of taking away. But if it be taken in a philosophic sense, 
for the support of accidents or qualities without the mind, then 
indeed I acknowledge that we take it away, if one may be said to 
take away that M'hich never bad any existence, not even in imagi- 
nation" (37). Berkeley was misled throughout by following the 
Lockian doctrines that the mind perceives immediately only its own 
ideas, and that substance is to be taken merely as the support or 
substratum of qualities. It is important to add that Berkeley is 
wrong (as Brown also is) in holding that we perceive material sub- 
stance " as a combination of sensible qualities." I am not aware 
that intuitively we perceive qualities separately or a combination of 
them ; we know body as an existing thing with extension and solidity. 
Hamilton says, that when we think a quality we are constrained to 
think it "as inhering in some basis, substratum, hypostasis, or sub- 
stance," which substance is represented as unknown: he speaks of 
being "compelled to refer it to an unknown substance" (Discuss. 
App. I. a). I hold that in the one concrete act we know both sub- 
stance and quality. 



CHAPTER VIII. 

MODE, QUALITY, PROPERTY, ESSENCE. 

Two great truths press themselves on the reflecting 
mind when it contemplates this world of ours. One, the 
more obvious, is the mutability of all mundane objects. 
Nothing seems to be enduring ; all is perceived as fluc- 
tuating. This has been a favorite theme with poets, to 
whom it has furnished a succession of kaleidoscope pic- 
tures; moralists and divines have dwelt upon it, in order 
to allure us to seek for something more stable than this 
world can furnish ; and even libertines have turned it to 
their own use, and exhorted us to catch the enjoyment 
while it passes, to shoot the bird on the wing : " Let us 
eat and drink, for to-morrow we die." Philosophies 
have been built on this doctrine of the fluctuation of all 
things. Heracleitus of Ephesus taught that all things 
are in a perpetual flux ; that we cannot enter the same 
stream twice ; whereon Cratylus corrected him, and 
showed that we cannot do so once. But there is another 
truth which has a no less important, indeed a deeper, 
place in the nature of things. In the midst of all these 
mutations objects have, after all, a permanence. Ever 
changing, they are yet all the while ever the same. Per- 
sons of deeper thought, or at- least more addicted to 
abstraction, looking beneath the changing surface, dwell 
on this permanence, which they discover to be like the 
fixed mountain, while the changes are merely like the 
colors that pass over its surface ; and some have so mag- 
nified it as to make it set aside the mutability. The 
Eleatics carried their doctrine so far as to maintain the 



MODE, QUALITY, PROPERTY, ESSENCE. Ill 

oneness and unchangeableness of all being. The founder 
of the school, Xenophanes, identified this immutable 
oneness with the Divine Being. His disciple, Par- 
menides, degenerating in religious faith, though superior 
to the master in logical power, narrowed this unity into 
metaphysical being. Zeno, who followed, showed his 
subtlety by pointing out the difficulties in which they 
are involved who maintain the existence of multiplicity 
and motion. The expansive mind of Plato wrestled with 
both these extremes, and sought by his doctrine of supra- 
sensible ideas, and an exuberance of subtleties, to es- 
tablish a doctrine of being not inconsistent with mul- 
tiplicity and change. In modern times Descartes and 
Spinoza have magnified the importance of Substance 
quite as much as the Eleatics did Being ; while the great 
mass of physicists, and all the speculators of the Sensa- 
tional School, never go down deeper than the fleeting, 
the superficial, and the phenomenal. 

The wise and the only proper course is to assume 
both ; to assume both as first truths. No attempt should 
be made to support either by mediate proof ; each carries 
with it its own evidence. Neither can be set aside by 
any sophistical reasoning founded on the other. It is 
the business of philosophy not to attempt to discard 
either, but rather to give the proper account of each, 
when they will be seen not to be inconsistent. The 
doctrine of the permanence of objects is founded on 
being and substance. We must take a view of the other 
truth in this section. 

Every substance, we have seen, is known as having 
being, power, and endurance. But every terrestrial sub- 
stance is at the same time known as changing. Self 
changes as we look in upon it; the material world 
changes as we look out upon it. No attempt should be 



112 PARTICULAR EXAMINATION OF PRIMITIVE TRUTHS. 

made to explain how the two can coexist, the permanent 
and the changeable. For mind and body are known at 
one and the same time as both. The one is quite as 
much known, and therefore quite as conceivable ever 
afterwards, as the other ; and there can be no difficulty 
(whatever metaphysicians may ingeniously urge in oppo- 
sition) in conceiving of their compatibility, since they 
were ever known to exist together. It is one of the 
permanent characters, both of mind and body, that they 
are ever known as changing. Their liabilit}'^ to change 
is an element in their very nature. Now the appropriate 
term to express the given state of any one substance is 
Mode ; or if we wish a convenient change of phrase- 
ology. Modification^ State, or Condition. 

From this account we see in what sense it is that sub- 
stance implies mode, and mode implies substance. Mode 
implies substance, not only inasmuch as a state must be 
the state of something, but inasmuch as mode is the 
state of a substance liable to change, and so capable of 
manifesting itself in more than one phase. Substance 
implies mode, inasmuch as it must always be in a certain 
state, and is liable to be in different states. The maxim 
is more than a verbal one, more than a truism, more 
than an identical (analytic) judgment involved in the 
terms ; it is a judgment affirming a truth intuitively dis- 
covered by the mind when looking at the things (a 
synthetic judgment a priori). 

Every object is known not only as having being, but 
is known as having a certain being or nature. That by 
which it manifests itself to us may be something com- 
mon to this one thing with other things, or it may be 
something peculiar to the thing itself. Every particular 
substance known is known as at least having being and 
potency and an abiding nature, and is known also as pos- 



MODE, QUALITY, PROPERTY, ESSENCE. 113 

sessing peculiar or distinguishing attributes. That by 
which the object is thus known to us as in itself, or as 
acting, may be called a quality of the substance. Sir 
W. Hamilton speaks of the qualities of substance as " its 
aptitudes and manners of existence and of action." ^ 

But let us properly understand the relation of the two, 
substance and quality. The two are ever known in one 
concrete act. Thus when at a given moment we know 
self as rejoicing, we do not know the self as separate, or 
the rejoicing as separate, but we grasp the self and the 
rejoicing at once. But then it is necessary for many 
purposes to distinguish between them, and we do so by 
analysis ; indeed, the analysis is in a sense done for us 
naturally. For while self is rejoicing to-daj', it may be 
grieving to-morrow. To express the distinction it is 
needful to have a nomenclature, and so we distinguish 
between the substance and the quality. Not that the 
substance can ever exist without the quality or the quality 
without the substance. On the contrary, the one implies 
the other. The substance must always have at least the 
qualities by which all substance is characterized, and it 
may have many others. The qualities must always be 
qualities of a thing having these characteristics. The 
maxim that the substance implies the quality, is thus a 
proposition of the same character as that the substance 
implies the mode. 

The word " substance " may be used either as an ab- 
stract or a general terra. As an abstract term it desig- 
nates the thing as having the characteristics of sub- 
stance, which I believe to be existence, potency, and con- 
tinuance. As a general term it denotes all those things 
which have the characteristics of substance. Quality, 
too, may be employed as an abstract or a general term. 
1 Metaph. Lect. 8. 



114 PARTICULAR EXAMINATION OF PRIMITIVE TRUTHS. 

As an abstract term it denotes that in any given sub- 
stance by which it acts or manifests itself. As a general 
term it denotes all the manifestations or actions of a 
substance. Some of these qualities are found in all sub- 
stance: such are the characteristics of substance of which 
I have so often spoken. Others are peculiar to certain 
substances, or manifest themselves in certain substances 
at certain times. Particular qualities are known by us 
intuitively to be in mind or matter. Thus we know 
consciousness, personality, thought, and will, as in mind ; 
while we know extension and incompressibility as being 
in matter: these may appropriately be styled Essential 
Qualities of spirit and body. Other qualities are dis- 
covered by a gathered experience. Both mind and body 
may have qualities which can never be known by us. As 
to the qualities which become known to us by experience, 
and the qualities concealed from us, we can never know 
whether any of them are, or are not, essential either to 
body or mind. 

If tins view be correct, we see that a wrong account is 
often given of substance and qualities, and the relation 
between them. Thus it is very common to say that 
substance is a thing behind the qualities or underneath 
them, acting as a substratum, basis, ground, or support. 
All such language is in its very nature metaphorical ; 
the analogy is of the most distant kind, and may have a 
misleading character. The substance is the very thing 
itself, considered in a certain aspect, and the qualities 
are its action or manifestation. Again, it is frequently 
said that qualities are known, whei'eas substance can- 
not be known, or, if known, known only by some deeper 
or more transcendental principle of the mind. Now I 
hold that we never know quality except as the quality of 
a substance, and that we know both equally in one un- 



MODE, QUALITY, PROPERTY, ESSENCE. 116 

divided act. This is a somewhat less mystical or mys- 
terious account than that commonly given by metaphysi- 
cians, but is, as it appears to me, in strict accordance 
with the revelations of consciousness. 

I have said that the term " quality " expresses all in 
the substance by which it acts or manifests itself. That 
in substance which acts is power, and in all substance 
(we have seen) is power. The term Peoperty, which 
signifies peculiar quality, might, I think, in accordance 
with a usage to which it has of late been approximating 
more and more, be appropriated to express the powers 
of any given substance, as the power of thinking or 
feeling in mind, or of gravity or chemical aflBnity in 
body. To vary the phraseology, the word Faculty may 
be employed when we speak of mental powers, and Force 
when we speak of material powers. It is the business of 
science to determine by observation and generalization 
the powers or properties of mind and body. 

Another phrase with the ideas involved in it requires to be ex- 
plained here, and that is Essence. It is a very mystical word, 
and a whole aggregate of foolish speculation has clustered round it. 
Still it may have a meaning. As applied logically to classes of 
objects, it has a signification which can be precisely fixed ; it de- 
notes the common quality or qualities which are found in all the 
members of the class. Thus the possession of four limbs is the 
essence of the class quadruped. It is to be remembered that when 
the class is one of what some logicians call Kinds, it is impossible to 
specify all the common qualities which go to constitute it. Thus 
we cannot tell all the attributes which go to make up such natural 
classes as those of metal, dog, or rose. All that we can do is to spe- 
cify some of the more marked, which are signs of others. But for 
such logical purposes the phrase " common attribute " or " diffei^ 
entia" is the better, and is more frequently employed. It is in meta- 
physics that the word "essence " is supposed to have a place. Thus 
the question is often put, What is the essence of mind ? or, What 
is the essence of body? or, What is the essence of this individual 



116 PARTICULAR EXAMINATION OF PRIMITIVE TRUTHS. 

mind, or of this piece of clay or chalk ? Now, we can answer such 
a question as this, only when we are allowed to draw distinctions 
and offer explanations. First, we may allowably conceive that 
every one object, and every class of objects, has an aggregate of 
things which go to constitute it, and we may with perfect propriety 
refer to such an essence as possibly or probably existing, but always 
on the distinct condition, forthwith to be specified more formally, 
that we do not speak of the essence as something which can be 
known by us in all its totality. Locke {Letter to Stillingjieel) takes 
Essences "to be in everything that internal constitution, or frame, or 
modification of the Substance, which God, in his wisdom and good 
pleasure, thinks fit to give to every particular creature when he 
gives it a being ; and such essences I grant there are in all things 
that exist." Secondly, there are some things which we know to 
belong to the essence of certain objects ; thus we know that being, 
power, and permanence are essential to all substance, and that 
certain qualities, such as consciousness and thought, belong to 
mind, and certain qualities such as extension and incompressibility, 
to body. But we must ever guard against the idea that there may 
not be other qualiiies also essential to these objects. For, thirdly, 
the essence of a thing, at least in its totality, must always be un- 
known to man. How many things are united in body or mind, or 
in any individual mind or material object, — this can never be ascer- 
tained by human observation or ingenuity. In this sense it is proper 
in us to speak of the essence of things as being unknown to man ; 
meaning thereby, not that we cannot know the substance, which I 
maintain we do know, or that we cannot know some of the qualities 
which go to make up the essence, but merely that we cannot know 
what precisely constitutes the essence in its entireness. But, 
fourthly, we are not warranted to maintain that there must be some- 
thing lying further in than the qualities we know, and that this one 
thing is entit^led to be regarded as the essence of the object. We 
have no ground whatever for believing that there must be, or that 
there is, something more internal or central than the substance and 
quality which we know. True, there are probably occult qualities, 
even in those objects with which we are most intimately acquainted, 
but we are not tlierefore warranted to conclude that what is concealed 
must differ in nature or in kind from what is revealed, or that it is in 
any way more necessary to the existence or the continuance of the 
object. I have a shrewd suspicion that there is a vast amount of un- 
meaning talk in the language which is employed on this special subject 



MODE, QUALITY, PROPERTY, ESSENCE. 117 

by metaphysicians, who would see something which the vulgar cannot 
discern, whereas they should be contented with unfolding the nature 
of what all men perceive. It is quite conceivable, and perfectly 
possible, that, though we should know all about any given material 
or spiritual object, we should after all not fall in with anything 
more mysterious or deep than those wonders which come every day 
under our notice la the world without, or the world within us. 



CHAPTER IX. 

BEING. 

The abstract notion of Being is one which the mind 
is not much disposed to fashion. As to many other 
abstractions, it is led naturally to form them ; they are 
framed for it, or it is compelled by the circumstances in 
which it is placed to frame them. Thus I see an indi- 
vidual with a black coat one day, and with a gray coat 
the next, and I cannot but separate the man from his 
clothing. But in such high abstractions as Being, that 
which we contemplate is never, in fact, separated from 
any one thing. Still Being is an abstraction which we 
are constrained to make for philosophic purposes, and it 
was, in fact, formed so early as the age of the specula- 
tors of the Eleatic School. It is the one thing to be 
.found objectively in all our knowledge. Hence in all 
our abstractions it is that which remains ; in the ascend- 
ing process of generalization it is the summum genus. 
This does not prove that Being can exist apart from a 
special mode of existence, or the exercise of some qual- 
ity. Nor does it prove that we can know Being separate 
from a concrete existence. I hold the one as well as 
the other of these to be impossible. But in all knowl- 
edge we know what we know as having existence, which 
is Being. 

I cannot give my adhesion to the opinion of those who 
speak so strongly of man being incapacitated to know 
Being. I have already intimated my dissent from the 
Kantian doctrine that we do not know things, but ap- 



BEING. 119 

pearances ; and even from the theory of those Scottish 
metaphysicians who affirm that we do not know things, 
but qualities. What we know is the thing manifesting 
itself to us, — is the thing exercising particular qualities. 
But then it is confidently asserted by Kantians that we 
do not know the " thing in itself." The language, I 
rather think, is unmeaning ; but if it has a meaning, it 
is incorrect. I do not believe that there is any such 
thing in existence as Being in itself, or that man can 
even so much as imagine it ; and if this be so, it is clear 
that we cannot know it, and desirable that we should 
not suppose that we know it. Of this I am sure, 
that those Neo-Platonists who professed to be able to 
rise to the discovery of Being in itself (which could only 
be the abstract idea of Being), and to be employed in 
gazing on it, had miserably bare and most unprofitable 
matter of meditation, whether for intellectual, or moral, 
or religious ends. But if any one mean to deny that we 
can know Being as it is, T maintain in opposition to him, 
and I appeal to consciousness to confirm me when I say, 
that we immediately know Being in every act of cogni- 
tion. But then we are told that we cannot know the 
mystery o£ Being. I am under a strong impression 
that speculators have attached a much greater amount of 
profundity to this simple subject than really belongs to 
it. Of this I am sure, that much of the obscurity which 
has collected around it has sprung from the confused 
discussions of metaphysicians, who have labored to ex- 
plain what needs no explanation to our intelligence, or 
to seek a basis on which to build what stands securely 
on its own foundation. I do indeed most fully admit 
that there may be much about Being which we do not 
know ; much about Being generally, much about every 



120 PARTICULAR EXAMINATION OF PRIMITIVE TRUTHS. 

individual Being, unknown to us and unknowable in this 
world. Still I do affirm that we know Being as Being, 
and that any further knowledge conveyed to us would 
not set aside our present knowledge, but would simply 
enlarge it. 



CHAPTER X. 

EXTENSION. 

The knowledge of extension is involved in every ex- 
ercise of sense -perception, even as the knowledge of 
personality is implied in every exercise of self-conscious- 
ness. We certainly cannot employ the senses of sight 
and muscular energy, — we cannot, I believe, perceive 
through any of the senses, — without knowing the ob- 
ject, be it the organism or something affecting the organ- 
ism, as possessing extension, — always along with other 
qualities. This, then, is historically the origin of our 
idea of space, — that is, we have a perception of it in 
every cognition of body. But in this primitive knowl- 
edge we do not apprehend it as distinct from body. It 
is an extended and a colored surface, which we know 
through the eye; it is an extended body capable of 
resisting us, which we know through the muscular sense 
and locomotive energy; it is a set of organs localized 
and out of each other, that we know by the other senses. 
But by an easy intellectual act we can separate the 
extension from the impenetrability and the associated 
sensations. We are greatly aided in our apprehensions 
of empty space by certain exercises of sense-perception. 
For we have experience ever presenting itself of two 
bodies seen or felt, with nothing between obvious to 
the senses. True, scientific research shows that the in- 
terval is not a pure vacuum, that there is air, or ether, 
between the bodies; still it is in our apprehension a 
void, — that is, a space, with no perceived body to fill it. 
We are thus led to an apprehension of space as different 



122 PARTICULAR EXAMINATION OF PRIMITIVE TRUTHS. 

from body occupying space. We are not to look on the 
extension thus reached as an illusion, a nonentity, or as 
nothing. If we know, as I maintain we do, body in 
space, the space must have an existence (I do not say 
what sort of existence), just as much as the body has. 
When we separately contemplate the extension, we are 
contemplating a reality just as verily as when we per- 
ceive the body. It will not do to dismiss space sum- 
marily by describing it as a mere abstraction : in order 
to our apprehension of it there is need of abstraction, 
but it is an abstraction of a real part from a real whole. 
To this cognition of space, and to every apprehension 
of it, there is attached a number of intuitive beliefs. 
It is the business of the metaphysician to unfold these 
in an inductive manner, and point out and determine 
their nature and laws as precisely as possible. This re- 
quires to be done in another Book of this Treatise, to 
which therefore I adjourn the further discussion of space, 
as it embraces a larger faith than it does of a cognitive 
element in our apprehension of it. 

Prof. Bain maintains (The Senses and Intellect, 2d ed. p. 397), 
that the localization of our bodily feelings is the result of experi- 
ence. I admit that it is by the muscular sense and the eye that we 
know the external configuration of our frame, and that it is by a 
gathered experience we connect this with the internal feelings. But 
I hold that we give an externality and a direction to our bodily 
sensations. Mr. Bain acknowledges that the body is to us an ex- 
ternal object (p. 397). If so, it must be known in space. But it 
has never yet been shown how we can know an object as external 
to us and in space except intuitively. "I do not see," says Mr. 
Bain, in criticising Hamilton (p. 376), "how one sensation can be 
felt out of another without already supposing that we have a feeling 
of space." What we suppose is that in thus regarding the body as 
external and localizing the sensations we get the idea of space. It 
is a law of this localizing that the sensation is felt at the part of the 
body to which the nerve reaches. And " when different parts of 



EXTENSION. 123 

the thickness of the same nerves are severally subjected to irrita- 
tion, the same sensations are produced as if the different terminal 
branches of these parts of the nerves had been irritated. If the 
ulnar nerve be irritated mechanically, particularly by pressing it 
from side to side with the finger, the sensation of pins and needles is 
produced in the palm and back of the hand, and in the fourth and 
fifth fingers. But according as the pressure is varied the pricking 
sensation is felt by turns in the fourth finger, in the fifth, in the 
palm of the hand, on the back of the hand, and both in the palm 
and on the back of the hand the situation of the pricking sensation 
is different according as the pressure on the nerves is varied, that is 
to say, according as different fibres or fasciculi of fibres are more 
pressed upon than others " (Miiller's Physiology, pp. 745-747). 
Surely all this is instinctive, not acquired. So deep is the disposi- 
tion to localize that it cannot be eradicated. " When a limb has 
been removed by amputation, the remaining portion of the nerve 
which ramified in it may still be the seat of sensations which are re- 
ferred to the lost part." " These sensations are not of an undefined 
character ; the pains and tingling are distinctly referred to single 
toes, to the sole of the feet, to the dorsum," etc. A case is quoted 
of a person whose arm had been amputated, and who declared 
twenty years after that " the sense of the integrity of the limb is 
never lost. " There is appended a note by Baly : "Professor Val- 
entin has observed, that individuals who are the subjects of conge- 
nital imperfection or absence of the extremities have nevertheless 
the internal sensations of such limbs in their perfect state. A girl 
aged nineleen years, in whom the metacarpal bones of the left hand 
were very short, and all the bones of the phalanges absent, a row of 
imperfectly organized wartlike projections representing the fingers, 
assured M. Valentin that she had constantly the internal sensation of 
the palm of the hand on the left side as perfect as in the right." 



CHAPTER XI. 

NTJMBEK. 

We seem to derive our knowledge of number from 
our cognition of being, and especially from our cognition 
of self as a person. We know self as one object; we 
also know other and external objects as singulars. Al- 
ready then have we number in the concrete, involved in 
this our primary knowledge. Every object known, and 
especially self, is known as one. Every other object 
known is known as another one. If we know self as 
owe, then the external object which is known as different 
from self is known as a second one. The mind can now 
think of one object, and of one object -|- another object, 
or of two, and of one object ~\- another object -f- another 
object, or of three. It can then, by a process of ab- 
straction, separate the numbers from the objects, in 
order to their separate consideration. Not that it sup- 
poses for one instant that numbers can exist apart from 
objects, but it can separately contemplate them. One 
cannot exist apart from one object, or two from two 
objects, but the mind can think about the one or the two 
apart from the peculiarity of the objects. Its judgments 
and its conclusions in all such cases, if conducted ac- 
cording to the laws of thought, will apply to objects; 
that is, all its judgments regarding one, two, or a thou- 
sand, will apply to a corresponding number of objects. 
Having obtained in this way a knowledge of numbers in 
the concrete, and numbers in the abstract, the mind is 
prepared to discover relations among numbers in a man- 



NUMBER. 125 

ner to be afterwards specified in the book on Primitive 
Judgments. 

But before leaving our present topic, it may be 
proper to state that the mind has no such conviction of 
the existence of numbers separate from the objects num- 
bered, as it has of space, distinct from the objects in 
space, or as it has of time, distinct from the events which 
happen in time ; nor has it any intuitive belief as to the 
necessary infinity of objects or of numbers. True, it 
can set no limit to the number of objects, but it is not 
compelled to believe that there can be no limits, as it is 
constrained to believe that there can be no bounds to 
space or to time. 

Aristotle places number among the sensibles perceived by the 
common sense (De Anima, ii. 6; in. 1), He says each sense per- 
ceives unity: kKaaT-n yhp eV aiaOiv^Tai aXffQrjffis (ill. 1, 5, ed. Trend.), 
Descartes makes number perceived by us in all perceptions of body 
(Prin. Part i. 69). Locke says of Unity or One : " Every object 
our senses are employed about, every idea in our understandings, 
every thought of our minds, brings this idea along with it " (Essay, 
II. xvi. 1). Buffier says that the knowledge that / exist, I am, I 
think, is in a sense the same as, or at least includes this, I am one 
(Prem. Ve'r. Part ii. 10). 



CHAPTER XII. 

MOTION. 

Our perception of motion is, as it appears to me, 
intuitive. But it supposes more than sense, or sense- 
perception, in the narrow sense of the term. It is prob- 
able that we have an apprehension of change of place, 
from the movement of our intuitively localized organs, 
— ssij from a member of the body being moved by the 
locomotive energy, as when I lift my arm ; this percep- 
tion will be especially apt to arise when we move the 
hand along organs to which a place has been given. Or 
we may apprehend an extra-organic body by the touch 
or muscular sense, and by the same sense feel our hand 
or some other extra-organic body passing over it. We 
may also get the perception by the sense of sight. The 
child touching a part of the body by its hand, will see 
the image of its hand moving to perform the act. Be- 
sides, the " image of our own body occupies, in nearly 
all pictures on our retina, regularly some determinate 
space in the upper, middle, or lower part of the field of 
vision;" it remains constant while the other images are 
seen moving. There is more here, however, than imme- 
diate cognition. There is a brief exercise of memory; 
we must, at the same time that we perceive the body as 
now in one place, remember that it was formerly in 
another place. There is an exercise, too, of comparison 
in noticing the relation between the object in respect of 
the place in which it has been, and the place in which it 
now is. And upon our discovering change of any kind 



MOTION. 127 

in the motion, the intuition of cause comes in to declare 
that there must have been active power at work. This 
is one of those cases which will come before us more and 
more frequently as we advance, in which cognitions, 
beliefs, and judgments mingle together ; and yet the act 
can scarcely be described as complex, except in this 
sense, that on other occasions some of the parts can exist 
separately or in other combinations. The circumstance 
that these other elements conjoin in our conviction as to 
motion, will bring the subject before us in other parts of 
the Treatise. 

Miiller's Physiology^ trans, by Baly, p. 1083. Aristotle places 
motion, like number, among the common sensibles ; Descartes 
among the properties perceived in eveiy perception of body (see 
places in last note) ; and Locke among the primary qualities of 
bodies, which are always in them (ii. viii. 22). The young man 
operated upon by Dr. Franz for cataract, three days after the opera- 
tion, saw "an extensive field of light, in which everything ap- 
peared dull, confused, and in motion." In a case reported by Dr. 
Wardrop, the woman returning home after the operation saw a 
hackney coach pass, and asked, " What is that large thing that 
passed us ? " (See Abbott, Sight and Touch, p. 153.) 



CHAPTER XIII. 

POWER. 

I HAVE been laboring to show, in the last chapter and 
in this, that power is involved in our knowledge of sub- 
stance. We can never know either self, or bodies be- 
yond self, except as exercising influence or potency. 
Not that we are to suppose that we have thus by in- 
tuition an abstract or a general idea of power ; all that 
we have is a knowledge of a given substance acting. 
This seems the only doctrine in accordance with the 
revelations of consciousness. It is involved in the com- 
mon statement that we cannot know substance except 
by its properties ; for what are properties but powers 
acting when the needful conditions are supplied? I 
reckon it as an oversight in a great body of metaphy- 
sicians that they have been afraid to ascribe our appre- 
hension of power to intuition. In consequence of this 
neglect, some never get the idea of power, but merely of 
succession, within the bare limits of experience, which 
can never entitle us to argue that the world must have 
proceeded from Divine Power ; others have been obliged 
to find cause, not in any perception of the mind as it 
looks on things, but in some form imposed by the mind 
on subjects ; while a considerable number hesitate and 
vacillate in their account, representing it now as an 
original conviction, and now as an acquisition of expe- 
rience. 

Wherever there is power in act, there is an effect. 
But the discovery of the relation between cause and 



POWER. 129 

effect cannot be discovered except by an exercise of 
judgment. The discussion of the nature of our convic- 
tion of Power will be resumed under the head of Primi- 
tive Judgments. 

It is by overlooking the varied attributes perceived by intuition, 
as specified in these last chapters, that J. S. Mill reaches his deplo- 
rably defective definitions of matter and mind. He says : "Matter 
may be defined a permanent possibility of sensations " (^Examination 
of Hamilton, p. 198). No doubt there are accompanying sensations, 
but matter is perceived by us as a thing without us, extended and 
with potency in multiplied forms. Mind " is a series of feelings 
aware of itself." But we know it as vastly more : it is a series not 
only of feelings, but of perceptions of things, memories, imaginations, 
judgments, moral decisions, volitions. And then there is an itself, 
of which, it is acknowledged, we are aware, and this makes the 
whole a substance. 



BOOK II. 

PRIMITIVE BELIEFS. 
CHAPTER I. 

THEER GENERAL NATUliE. 
I. 

Our primary cognitions and beliefs are very inti- 
mately connected, and they run almost insensibly into 
each other. Yet they may be distinguished. The 
phrase " primitive cognition," when we find it needful 
to separate it from faith, might be confined in strictness 
to those mental energies in which the mind looks on 
an object now present, — say on body perceived by the 
senses, or on self in a particular state, or on a represen- 
tation in the mind ; and then " faith " would be applied 
to all those exercises in which we are convinced of the 
existence of an object not now before us, or under im- 
mediate inspection. 

Philosophers have drawn the distinction between Pre- 
sentative and Representative Knowledge. In the former 
the object is present at the time ; we perceive it, we feel 
it, we are conscious of it as now and here and under our 
inspection. In Representative Knowledge there is an 
object now present, representing an absent object. Thus 
I may have an image or conception of Venice, with its 
decaying beauty, and this is now present and under the 
eye of consciousness ; but it represents something absent 
and distant, of the existence of which I am at the same 
time convinced. When I was actually in Venice, and 



THEIR GENERAL NATURE. 131 

gazed on its churches and palaces rising out of the 
waters, there would have been no propriety in saying 
that I believe in the existence of the city, — the correct 
phrase would have been that I know it to exist. I know, 
too, that I have at this moment an idea of Venice ; but as 
Venice itself is not before me, the proper expression of 
my conviction is, that I believe in its existence. I main- 
tain that whenever we have passed beyond Presentative 
Knowledge, and are assured of the reality of an absent 
object, there faith — it may be in a very simple form, 
but still real faith — has entered as an element. So far 
as I am conscious of an imaging of the past, or a judg- 
ing of it, or a reasoning about it, my mental state is 
cognition ; but so far as I am convinced of the existence 
of the absent object, my state of mind is belief. In such 
examples the faith is of a low order, and need not be 
distinguished from knowledge, except for the purposes 
of rigid science ; but still faith is there, and there in its 
essential character ; and he who would know what faith 
is, must view it in these lower forms, " which exist more 
simple in their elements," as well as in the higher, just 
as he who would know the nature of the plant or animal 
must study it in the lichen or zoophyte. These are the 
incipient movements of a mental power which is capable 
of rising to the greatest heights of earth, and looking 
up to the heaven above, which can call before it all time, 
and go forth even into the eternity beyond. 

According to this account we are said to know our- 
selves, and the objects presented to the senses and the 
representations (always, however, as presentations) in 
the mind ; but to believe in objects which we have seen 
in time past, but which are not now present, and in 
objects which we have never seen, and very specially in 
objects which we can never fully know, such as an Infi- 



132 PRIMITIVE BELIEFS. 

nite God. The mind seems to begin, not with faith, but 
with cognition. It sets out with the knowledge of an 
external object presented to it, and with a knowledge of 
self contemplating that object. I cannot, then, agree 
with those who maintain that faith — I mean natural 
faith — must precede knowledge. I hold that knowledge, 
psychologically considered, appears first, and then faith. 
But around our original cognition there grows and clus- 
ters a body of primitive beliefs which goes out far be- 
yond our personal knowledge. Knowledge is, after all, 
the root ; but from this stable and more earthly ground 
there spring beliefs which mount in living power and in 
lovely form and color toward the sky. 

11. 

By this account we keep faith from being wrapt up in 
such a cloud as it often is. We see how it joins on to 
cognition and mingles with it. Faith, as the telescope, 
shows objects which unaided sense cannot discern, but 
still there is a personal knowledge, an eye to guarantee 
the accuracy of the vision. We have immediate knowl- 
edge always with us — we have self in a particular state 
or exercise ; but rising from this we believe in an object 
which is absent, — in the loftier exercises of faith we 
believe in objects which we have never seen, and which 
we never can see in this world. We are thus prevented, 
too, from making faith a mere subjective feeling, and 
separating it from things. It is in regard to objects ap- 
prehended, and apprehended because we have known 
them, or have known others with like qualities, that we 
entertain faith. It is from the contemplation of such 
objects that we are led to believe that they have quali- 
ties which do not fall under our immediate cognizance. 
In a sense we know space, for it is present to us; cer- 



THEIR GENERAL NATURE. 133 

tainly body occupying space is ever before the senses ; 
but when we look on space as having no bounds, we are 
beyond the territory of knowledge, we have mounted 
into the region of faith. 

An important question is here raised, Can there be 
faith without some idea of what is believed ? I am con- 
vinced that there is always an apprehension of some 
kind in faith. Without an image or notion to fix on, 
there could be no faith. But to qualify this statement 
we must take along with us several other truths equally 
important. We may believe in truths which we cannot 
comprehend in the sense of knowing all their qualities 
and relations. In this sense it may be said that we 
cannot fully comprehend any one object in earth or 
heaven ; for everything known to us has references to 
other things which are unknown ; beyond every country 
known, there is to us a terra incognita. But there are 
objects which impress us with the conviction that we 
have scarcely any acquaintance with their nature, and 
that there is much in them or about them which is to 
us incognizable. Thus in the doctrine of the Trinity 
there is so much apprehended by us because revealed, but 
there is more which we try in vain to compass. We be- 
lieve, too, in truths which we cannot reconcile with other 
truths ; and we may adhere to them resolutely in spite 
of improbabilities and difficulties. I apprehend, indeed, 
that in all such cases our intellectual nature will con- 
strain us to believe that there must be some method of 
reconciliation, though the link cannot be perceived by 
us. Were it shown in regard to any proposition that it 
is inconsistent with an acknowledged truth, I suppose 
our faith in it would vanish. Could it be demonstrated 
— which, however, it never has been — that a primary 
faith is contradicted by any other primary truth, I be- 



134 PRIMITIVE BELIEFS. 

lieve we should be landed in absolute scepticism. Fur- 
ther, we may believe objects to possess qualities of 
which we have no notion. Tlius in heaven there are 
pleasures such as it hath not entered into the heart of 
man to conceive. Thus, too, on earth we often find 
effects proceeding from causes which are utterly un- 
known. Still even in such cases there is an apprehen- 
sion ; there is an apprehension of an object with a qual- 
ity ; there is an apprehension of a place with pleasures 
of a kind different from those which we enjoy on earth ; 
there is the apprehension of a cause producing this effect. 
In such exercises the mind is impressed at times pain- 
fully, at times sublimely, with the inadequacy of its ideas 
to represent the object, and this is often one of the pecu- 
liar features of our faith, marking it out from our clear 
intellectual notions and judgments. In many of our 
faiths the mind sees but a speck of light in midst of 
circumambient darkness. 

The two, knowledge and faith, differ psychologically, 
and there are important philosophic ends to be served by 
distinguishing them ; but after all it is more important 
to fix our attention on their points of agreement and 
coincidence. The belief has a basis of cognition, the 
cognition has a superstructure of beliefs. The one con- 
viction, equally with the other, carries within itself its 
validity and authority. No man is entitled to restrict 
himself to cognitions, and refuse to attend or to yield to 
the beliefs which he is also led to entertain by the very 
constitution of his mind. No man can do so, in fact. 
He who would do so must needs go out of the world. 
Every man must act upon his native beliefs as well as 
upon his cognitions. He requires no external considera- 
tion to lead him to trust in the one any more than in the 
other, for each has its sufficiency in itself. He who 



THEIR GENERAL NATURE. 135 

would weakly give up his native faiths because assaults 
are made on them, and doggedly resolve to yield to 
nothing but immediate cognitions, will find that the scep- 
tic who has driven him from the beliefs will go on to 
attack the cognitions likewise, and that he can defend 
the cognitions only on grounds which might have ena- 
bled him to stand by his credences likewise. On the 
other hand, I grieve over the attempts, for the last age 
or two, of a scliool of thinkers who labor to prove that 
the understanding, or the speculative reason, leads to 
scepticism and nihilism, and then appeal to faith to save 
us from the abyss before us. I have no toleration for 
those who tell us with a sigh, too often of affectation, 
that they are very sorry that knowledge or reason leads 
to insoluble doubts and contradictions, from which they 
are longing to be delivered by some mysterious faith. 
It is time to put an end to this worse than civil strife, 
to this setting of one part of the soul against another. 
I do not believe that the understanding, or the reason, 
or any other power of the mind, lands us in scepticism. 
Each cognitive faculty conducts in its own way to its 
own truths. The intelligence and the faith are not con- 
flicting, but conspiring elements. I am sure that the 
criticism which has attacked the knowledge would, if 
followed out, be no less formidable in its assaults on the 
belief. In these pages I am endeavoring to show how 
they concur and cooperate, being almost always associ- 
ated in one concrete act, which we analyze merely for 
scientific ends. 

III. 

But while we must yield to our intuitive beliefs as 
well as perceptions, we are not therefore to suppose that 
our faiths are beyond inspection and above examination. 
They are liable to be tried, and should at times be tried, 



136 PRIMITIVE BELIEFS. 

by the very same tests as our cognitions. We are not to 
allow ourselves, without examination and without review, 
to yield to whatever may suggest itself to our own 
minds, or be recommended to us by others, as a primi- 
tive belief. We must try the spirits, whether they are 
of God. In nothing is man so apt to run into excess 
and extravagance, into folly and error, as in yielding to 
plausible beliefs. The tendency of faith is upwards, but 
it needs weights and plummets to hold it down, lest it 
mount into a region of thin air, and there burst and 
dissolve. Fortunately we have a ready means at hand 
of trying our constitutional beliefs, and determining for 
us when they should be disallowed, and when they 
should be allowed to flow out freely. Are they self- 
evident? Are they necessary, — so necessary that we 
cannot believe the opposite? Are they universal? 
These three questions, searchingly asked and honestly 
answered, will settle for us whether we ought or ought 
not to follow a belief proffered to our acceptance. We 
are at liberty to employ a belief in argument, appeal, 
and speculation, only under the same conditions as a 
cognition ; that is, having shown that it is a constitu- 
tional one, we must further determine more accurately 
its nature and law, its extent and limits. Thus, and 
thus only, can we hope on the one hand to be kept from 
mistaking our own fancies, misapprehensions, wishes, or 
prejudices for primitive and heaven-born beliefs, and, on 
the other hand, be justified in appealing to the faiths 
which have the sanction of our constitution, and the God 
who gave us our constitution, and in using them as a 
basis on which to rear a fabric of philosophical, or eth- 
ical, or theological truths. 

The question is started. Whence the seeming mistakes 
of memory ? We find at times two honest witnesses 



THEIR GENERAL NATURE. 137 

giving different accounts of the same transaction. We 
have all found ourselves at fault in our recollections on 
certain occasions. I believe we must account for the 
seeming treachery of the memory in much the same 
way as we do for the deception of the senses. There 
ever mingle with our proper recollections more or fewer 
.inferences, and in these there may be errors. In order 
to clear up the subject we draw the distinction between 
our natural or pure reminiscences and those mixed ones 
in which there are processes of reasoning.^ 

The distinction between Presentative and Representative Knowl- 
edge is drawn by Hamilton in his edition of Reid, Note B. The 
view given by me in the text seems to be in accordance with such 
language as the following, used by him in Metaph. Lect. 12 : " Prop- 
erly speaking, we know only the actual and the present, and all 
real knowledge is an immediate knowledge. What is said to be me- 
diately known is in truth not known to be, but only believed to be." 
Speaking of memory, he says : " It is not a knowledge of the past 
at all, but a knowledge of the present and a belief of the past." 
Consistently or inconsistently, he says that " belief always precedes 
knowledge" (Lect. 3). Speaking of the external world, he says: 
" We believe it to exist, only because we are immediately cognizant 
of it as existing " (Reid, p. 750). With this I concur. But I can- 
not agree with what follows, where he seems to found our knowledge 
on a belief, and represents our knowing that we know as founded on 
a belief prior to or deeper than knowledge. "If asked, indeed. 
How do we know that we know it ? . . . how do we know that this 
object is not a mere mode of mind illusively presented to us as a 
mode of matter ? then indeed we must reply that we do not (?) in 
propriety know that what we are compelled to perceive as not-self is 
not a perception of self, and that we can only on reflection believe 
such to be the case, in reliance on the original necessity of so believ- 
ing imposed on us by our nature." 

Augustine gave a province both to knowledge and faith without 
very distinctly clearing up the boundaries: " Quanivis enim, nisi 

^ See this explained in my Psychology : The Cognitive Powers, pp. 
163, 164. 



138 PRIMITIVE BELIEFS. 

aliquid intelligat nemo possit credere in Deum ; tamen ipsa fide qua 
credit, sanetur, et intelligat ampliora. Alia sunt enim quae nisi 
intelligamus non credimus ; et alia sunt quae nisi credainus non intel- 
licrimus " (Enar. in Psalm 118). Tliere were profound discussions 
in the scholastic ages as to the relation of faith and knowledge, but 
it was in regard to matters of religion, specially of revelation includ- 
ing church authority. Anselm gave the first or deeper place to 
faith : " Neque enim quaero intelligere ut credam, sed credo ut intel- 
ligam " {Med. 21). Abelard, on the other hand, maintained that we 
must begin with finding reasons to show the truth of Christianity, 
and thence reach faith, and go on to a higher cognition or intuition 
(7'heol. ii). The discussion has been renewed from age to age ever 
since by theologians. Romanists and High Church Divines have 
commonly given the precedence to faith, and decided Protestants to 
knowledge. In particular, the Puritans represent a certain amount 
of knowledge as necessary to faith, but also add that faith lias a 
powerful influence in increasing knowledge. Thus Charnock (Knowl- 
edge of God) : " There can be no act about an unknown object." 
"Faith cannot be without the knowledge of God and Christ." 
" Knowledge is antecedent to faith in the order of nature." There 
was confusion in tins whole discussion owing to its not being deter- 
mined psychologically what is the precise nature, and what are the 
differences, of knowledge and faith, and of reason and faith. In 
every exercise of mind about the great objects and truths of religion, 
there must be both cognitive and faith elements embraced, and rea- 
son always comprises faith when it refers to the existence of absent 
objects. 

Kant labored to demonstrate that the Speculative Reason lands us 
in contradiction, and was not given us in order to reach objective 
truth ; but then he called in a Practical Reason which guaranteed a 
moral law, a God, and immortality. See the Methodenlehre in the 
Kritik of Pure Reaxon. Jacobi admitted far too readily, to Kant 
and Fichte, that speculation and philosophy led to scepticism, but he 
fell back on Faith (Glaube) or Sentiment (Gefiilil), which he repre- 
sented as a Revelation (Offenbarung). See his David Hume: Ueber 
den Glauhen, and Jacobi an Fichte. He has given views of intuition 
and of faith as true as they are beautiful ; but he has not unfolded 
the precise nature of faith, nor seen its relation to the understand- 
ing. Even Fichte, after trying to show that knowledge (Wissen) 
leads to an absolute idealism, in which we know not whether our 
very thought may not be a dream, resorts to Faith (Glaube), and 



THEIR GENERAL NATURE. 139 

allows an appeal to the Heart (Hertz) (Bestimmung des Menschen, 
Buch III. Glaube). Sir W. Hamilton maintains that " all that we 
know is phenomenal of the unknown " (^Discuss, p. 644, 2d ed.), 
and that " the knowledge of Nothing is the principle or result 
of all true philosophy" (p. 609), but delights to recognize a faith 
which looks beyond ; not explaining, however what he means by 
faith. "We are warned," he says, " from recognizing the domain of 
our knowledge as necessarily coextensive with the horizon of our 
faith." And he adds : " And by a wonderful revelation we are thus, 
in the very consciousness of our inability to conceive aught above 
the relative and the finite, inspired with a belief in the existence 
of something unconditioned, beyond the sphere of all comprehensive 
reality " (p. 15). Hamilton is often appealing to faith, but has left 
a very imperfect account of it. "He adopts," as Mr. Calderwood 
acutely remarks, "the Kantian distribution, which embraces the 
mental phenomena under the three divisions of Cognition, Feeling, 
and Appetency. The first embraces the phenomena of knowledge ; 
the second, of pleasure and pain; and the third, of will and desire. 
If, then, faith has any place in its distribution, it is to be found 
among the phenomena of knowledge " (Philosophy of the Infinite, 
where are many fine remarks on faith and knowledge, 2d ed. 
p. 136). But the truth is, it is not clear in which of the three divi- 
sions Kant or Hamilton would put faith. The difficulty of finding a 
place for faith, and we may add, for conscience and imagination, 
shows that their three-fold division of the mental attributes is defec- 
tive ; the same may be said of that of Professor Bain (Senses and 
Intellect, pp. 2-10, and App. I.). But passing over this, it would 
almost look as if Hamilton would have to put faith into the compart- 
ment of feeling. " Knowledge and belief differ not only in degree but 
in kind. Knowledge is certainly founded on intuition. Belief is 
certainly founded upon feeling " (Logic, Lect. 37). We cannot 
conceive a more radically defective account than this of faith, to 
found it upon feeling, which he explains as consisting in pleasure 
and pain. The disciples of Hamilton have not thrown any light on 
the subject. Faith is explained by Professor Fraser (Essays, p. 32) 
as " the belief of principles which in themselves are incognizable or 
irreconcilable by the understanding, and yet unquestionable." But 
surely we have faith in God, who yet is not incognizable. Professor 
Veitch says (Art. Hamilton in Diet. Univ. Biog.): " The absolute or 
infinite is cast beyond the sphere of thought and science ; it is still, 
however, allowed by Hamilton to remain in some sense in conscious- 



140 PRIMITIVE BELIEFS. 

ness, for it is grasped by faith, and faith is a conscious act. The 
question, accordingly, at once meets us : In what sense and how far 
can there be an object within consciousness which is not properly 
within thought or knowledge ? In other words, how far is our faith 
in the infinite intelligent and intelligible ? This point demands 
farther and more detailed treatment than it has met with either at 
the hands of Sir W. Hamilton himself, or any one who has sought 
to carry out his principles." JFor years past I have been calling on 
the disciples of Hamilton to explain what they mean by faith. Till 
this point is cleared up, there is an unfilled-up chasm in the whole 
psychology and philosophy of the schooL 



CHAPTER II. 

SPACE AND TIME. 

I. 

Of Space in the concrete we have an immediate 
knowledge ; that is, by the senses, certainly by some of 
them,, such as the touch and the sight ; most probably by 
all of them we know bodies, say our own bodily organ- 
ism, as extended, that is, as occupying space. By ab- 
straction we can fix our attention on the space as distinct 
from associated qualities, and by inward reflection we 
can gather what are the convictions attached. These 
convictions pass beyond knowledge proper, and become 
beliefs, that is, convictions in regard to something which 
we do not immediately know, nay, which we may never 
be able to know. 

With Time, also, we have an immediate acquaintance. 
In sense-perception and self-consciousness we know a 
particular object or mental state as now present. Our 
consciousness is continuous ; speedily does immediate 
consciousness slide into memory ; the present becomes 
past, and is remembered as past. The child's organism 
is now in a state of pain ; immediately after the pain is 
gone, but the pain of the past is remembered, and re- 
membered as being past. Already, then, there is the 
idea of time always in the concrete, — we remember 
something as having been under our consciousness in the 
past. By abstraction we can then think of the time as 
different from the event remembered in time ; and by 
introspection we can ascertain the nature of the attached 
convictions. Many of these are of the nature of faiths 



142 PRIMITIVE BELIEFS. 

going far beyond what is, or ever can be, immediately 
known. 

Space and time mingle with all our perceptions. Yet 
after all we can say little about them ; all that we can 
do as metaphysicians is to analyze and express our orig- 
inal convictions. It belongs to the mathematician to 
evolve deductively what is involved in certain of them. 
In unfolding the necessary convictions we may make the 
following affirmations : — 

II. 

Time and Space have a reality independent of the 
Percipient Mind, and out of the percipient mind. The 
intelligence does not create them, it discovers them, and 
it discovers them as having an existence independent of 
the mind contemplating them, as having this existence 
whether the mind contemplates them or no, and an 
existence out of and beyond the mind as it thinks of 
them. He who denies this, is in the very act setting 
aside one of the clearest of native principles, and has 
left himself no standpoint from which to repel any pro- 
posal, suggested to himself or offered by another, to set 
aside any other conviction, or all other convictions. If 
some one affirm that space has no objective existence, 
he leaves it competent for anj^ other coming after him 
to maintain that the objects perceived in space have no 
reality. He who allows that time may have no reality 
except in the contemplative mind, will find himself 
greatly troubled to answer the sceptic when he insists 
that the events in time are quite as unreal as the time is 
in which they are perceived as having occurred. There 
13 only one sure and consistent mode of avoiding these 
troublesome and dangerous consequences, and that is by 
standing up for the veracity of all our fundamental per- 



SPACE AND TIME. 143 

ceptions, and, among others, of our convictions regarding 
the reality of space and time. 

According to Kant, space and time are the forms 
given by the mind to the phenomena which are presented 
through the senses, and are not to be considered as hav- 
ing anything more than a subjective existence. It is one 
of the most fatal heresies — that is, dogmas opposed to 
the revelations of consciousness — ever introduced into 
philosophy, and it lies at the basis of all the aberrations 
in the school of speculation which followed. For those 
who were taught that the mind could create the space 
and time, soon learned to suppose that the mind could 
also create the objects and events cognized as in space 
and time, till the whole external universe became ideal, 
and all reality was supposed to lie in a series of con- 
nected mental forms. He who would arrest the stream 
must seek to stop it at the place whence it flowed out ; 
otherwise all his efforts will be ineffectual. 

m. 

Space and Time are Continuous, that is, they extend 
out, flow on, without break, separation, or interruption. 
In this respect they are different from matter or body, 
which may be broken into parts, and the parts separated 
from each other. But there can be no gaps in space, no 
cessation in time. There are, and can be, no variations 
in the one or other. We do speak of times changing, 
but we mean the circumstances in time. We say tempora 
mutantur, but the changes are in the events, which 
mutantur in illis. 

This is one of several circumstances which has made 
space and time to be classed together. Yet while they 
may be grouped under one head, they are not identical, 
and they have their points of difference. In particular, 



144 PRIMITIVE BELIEFS. 

space has three dimensions, — length, breadth, and 
depth ; that is, we may contemplate it as extending 
along any given line, as spreading out in a surface, or as 
going out in all directions. Time again has only succes- 
sion, present, priority and posteriority. We often apply 
to time language derived from space, and we represent 
time as a line, and speak of it as being only in one direc- 
tion. But it is to be remembered that such language is 
used metaphorically, and has no literal meaning as ap- 
plied to time. Still it points to a truth, and specifies a 
difference between space and time. But in regard to 
their extension or flow, both are continuous, and spread 
out or run on without a possible division. 

But it will be urged, that the question is often dis- 
cussed as to whether space and time are infinitely divis- 
ible, and that certain mathematicians maintain that they 
have demonstrated the infinite divisibility of space. In 
looking at this question, it is desirable first of all to have 
it settled in what sense extension is capable of division. 
We cannot divide space in the sense in which we divide 
matter. In dividing body we separate one part of it 
from another, so as to leave a space between. We can 
thus divide an apple, and keep one part of it in our 
hand, and lay the other on the table. But we cannot 
thus separate or isolate space apart from space. In the 
sense of separation, we cannot with propriety speak of 
the infinite divisibility of space, for it is not divisible at 
all, either finitely or infinitely. The same remark holds 
good of time. The mind declares that the separation of 
space from space, or of time from time, is impossible in 
the nature of things.^ 

There may, however, be relations discovered both in 

* This view is developed with great acuteness in Gillespie's Neces- 
sary Existence of Deity (Exam. Antith. Refut. Part in.). 



SPACE AND TIME. 145 

space and time. We can conceive of less or more of 
extension, and of proportions between the less and the 
more ; the one may be twice or ten times as much as the 
other. All this we are allowed, nay necessitated, to 
think. The science which treats of quantity, that is, 
mathematics, has specially to do with these relations. 
There may be little or no impropriety in calling these 
proportions parts, provided we do not misunderstand the 
language we employ, or understand it as implying that 
between two spaces there can be an interval in which 
there is no space. What is meant by the infinite divi- 
sion of space seems to be, that, fixing our thoughts on 
any given section or proportion of space, say the thou- 
sandth part of an inch, we are at liberty to conceive of 
the half of it, and again of the half of the quotient, and 
so on indefinitely as far as may serve our purpose or we 
may choose. Some of these subjects will be resumed 
when we come to consider those primitive judgments 
which relate to quantity. 

But before leaving the subject immediately before us, 
it is of importance to have it noticed that our convictions 
say nothing whatever on (what is a very different mat- 
ter from the divisibility of space, though the two have 
often been confounded) the infinite divisibility of matter. 
This latter is a question which can be settled by nothing 
but experience ; experience at this present stage of 
science says nothing whatever on the subject, and I sus- 
pect will never be able to settle it on one side or othei\ 
There might be limits to man's capacity of dividing 
body which would not be limits to other beings, and 
whether there could be any limits to a Being of Infinite 
Power is a question which it transcends our faculties to 
answer, and which therefore we should not attempt to 
answer. 



146 PRIMITIVE BELIEFS. 

IV. 

Space aud Time have and can have no Limits. Nor is 
this a mere negative proposition, as some have declared 
it to be ; it is a positive affirmation that to whatever 
point we go, in reality or in imagination, there must 
be a space and time beyond. Nor is it, as it has been 
represented, an impotency of mind. It is not a mere 
incapacity to conceive that when we go a certain 
length back or forward in time, or out into space, there 
time and space should cease. It is a conviction of a 
positive kind, that beyond these points, or beyond any 
other space conceivable, there must still be time aud 
space. This, as will be shown more fully forthwith, is a 
truth self-evident, necessary, universal. If we were car- 
ried out to the utmost point to which the furthest-seeing 
telescope can reach, or beyond this as far as imagination 
can range, we should confidently stretch forth our hand 
into an outer region, believing that there must be space 
into which it might enter, and that if it were hindered 
it must be by body occupying space. 

There is more than this embraced in our native con- 
viction. We are constrained to believe as to the space 
and time which we know in part, and which we are con- 
strained to regard as beyond our power of imagination, 
that they are such that no addition could be made to 
them. This is a further and a most impoi'tant element 
in our conviction. We intuitively know space and time : 
with this we start. Looking to the space and time which 
we thus know, we are constrained to regard them as ever 
going beyond our image of them. But we do more : we 
are convinced that they are such in their very nature 
that no further space and time could be added to them. 
Join these elements together, and, so far as I can discover 



SPACE AND TIME. 147 

by reflection on the operations of my own mind, we have 
the conception and belief which the mind of man is able 
to attain as to the infinity of space and time. 

V. 

But we are already in the heart of the subject of the 
Infinite, to which a separate chapter must be allotted. 
In this chapter we have yet to take up difficulties which 
press on us when we contemplate space and time. We 
may have occasion to show, at a later part of this work, 
that our very cognitions often land us in mysteries, that 
is, in propositions to which we must assent, but which 
have bearings which we cannot comprehend. To a still 
greater extent is it of the nature of faith ever to be going 
out into darkness. For the truths believed in may not 
be fully comprehended in themselves, and their relations 
may be altogether beyond our ken. It should be frankly 
acknowledged that we are landed in mysteries which the 
human intellect cannot explicate, whenever we inquire 
beyond the narrow limits within which our convictions 
restrain us. But it is of all courses the most foolish and 
suicidal to urge the difficulties connected with space and 
time as a reason for setting aside our intuitive convictions 
respecting them, say in regard to their reality. Doubt- 
less we are landed in some perplexities by allowing that 
they are real, but we are landed in more hopeless diffi- 
culties and in far more serious consequences when we 
deny their reality ; and there is this important difference 
between the cases, that in the one the difficulties arise 
from the nature of the subject, whereas in the other they 
are created by our own unwarranted affirmations and 
speculations. 

But what are space and time is the question that will 
be pressed on us. To this I reply, that it is true of 



148 PRIMITIVE BELIEFS. 

them, as of the objects of every other intuitive convic- 
tion, that we cannot explain them except by referring to 
our original perception. All that has been attempted in 
this chapter is to bring out clearly what is involved in 
the intuition. 

But it will be asked, Are they substances, are they 
modes, or are they relations? To this I reply, that 
these questions relate not so much to the nature of space 
or time as the classification of them, and that they are 
not to be classified with substances, modes, or relations. 
We cannot call them substances, for we do not know that 
they have power or action. Nor can we call them modes, 
for we have no intuitive knowledge of any substance in 
which they inhere. And they are certainly more than 
relations of one thing to another, for we know no two or 
more things which by their relation could yield space and 
time. They are not, then, to be arranged with such cog- 
nitions as these. They seem indeed to be entitled to be 
put in a class by themselves, and resemble substances, 
modes, relations, only in that they are existences, entities, 
realities. 

Certain mystical divines and philosophers are accus- 
tomed to speak of space and time as having no reality to 
the Divine mind. It follows, I think, that if they have 
no reality to the God who knows all truth, they can, 
properly speaking, have no reality at all. If our convic- 
tions testify (as I have endeavored to show) that they 
have a reality, it follows, I think, that they have a real- 
ity to the Divine mind. Again, there are some who talk 
of an Eternal Now : — 

" Nothing is there to come, and nothing past, 
But an Eternal Now does ever last." 

These lines of Cowley embody, as definitely as can 
be done, a view which was countenanced by certain ex- 



SPACE AND TIME. 149 

pressions of Augustine, and systematized in the scholas- 
tic ages, and which has ever since been floating in the 
statements of divines in speaking of God and Eternity 
and Time. But the language has either no meaning, or, 
if it has, it lands us in hopeless contradictions. 

It would have been very different if divines had con- 
tented themselves with stating that they do not know 
how space and time stand related to the Divine mind. 
We are here in the midst of a mystery, which we have 
no faculties to clear up. We know that space and time 
exist ; we know on sufficient evidence that God exists : 
but we have no means of knowing how space and time 
stand related to God. There may be truth in the state- 
ment of Joannes Damascenus, that " God is his own 
place, filling all things, and being over all things, and 
himself containing all things," but how much truth can- 
not be determined by the limited mind of man.^ The 
view taken by Sir Isaac Newton — " Deus durat semper 
et adest ubique, et, existendo semper et ubique, duratio- 
nem et spatium constituit " ^ — jy certainly a grand one, 
but I doubt much whether human intelligence is entitled 
to affirm dictatorially that it is as true as it is sublime. 

It is by placing the subject beyond the human facul- 
ties that we are able to meet an objection urged with 
great logical power by Kant, and usually thought to be 
insuperable.^ If space and time be real and infinite, then 
we have two infinites ; and if God be also infinite, our 
difficulties are increased. For it is absurd, if not contra- 
dictory, to suppose that there can be two infinite things, 
— that God can be infinite while space and time are also 

^ ' O dehs favTOv tSttos icrri, tA iriLvra irXripwv, koI virep Ta irivra &v, Koi 
auTos (TvviX'^f T^ irdvTa (De Orthod. Fid. I. 13). 
^ Scholium at close of Phil. Nat. Prin. Math. 
* Krilik d. r. Vern, Die transcen. .Sisthet. 



150 PRIMITIVE BELIEFS. 

infinites. Now to this I might, without the possibility of 
a positive refutation, urge, firstly, that there may, for 
aught we know, be nothing inconsistent in supposing 
that there are two things, as space and time, the one un- 
bounded and the other without beginning or end, and 
that there can even be nothing contradictory in suppos- 
ing that space and time on the one hand, and God on the 
other, may have infinite attributes. They could be held 
as contradictory only in the supposition that the exist- 
ence of unbounded space and unending time were, in the 
nature of things, inconsistent one with another or with 
the existence of an infinite God ; which it may safely be 
said can never be proven. As to how they could subsist 
together, is a question we are not obliged to answer, for 
we must believe many separate truths, each on its evi- 
dence, without being able to trace a connection, or so 
much as to say that there is a how between them. But 
I plant myself on far firmer ground when I maintain, 
secondly, that while I believe that space and time are in- 
finite, and that God is infinite, I am not necessarily 
obliged to hold that the infinity of space and time is in- 
dependent of the infinity of God. Who will venture to 
affirm that the statement we have quoted from the great 
Newton may not be true ? Who will venture to afiirm 
that space and time, being dependent on God, may not 
stand in a relation to God which is altogether indefina- 
ble and utterly inconceivable by us ? True, we are con- 
strained to believe that space and time have an existence 
independent of us, but we are not compelled to believe 
that they have an existence independent of everything 
else, and least of all independent of God — we must keep 
ourselves from falling into the heathen sin of deif5ang 
Chronos. In such a subject, where we have no light 
from intuition or from experience to guide us, true wis- 



SPACE AND TIME. 151 

dom shows itself in refusing to assert or dogmatize, or 
even to speculate ; and when it has observed this rule 
for itself, it is the better able to rebuke doubt and scepti- 
cism, when they would bring forth their difficulties from 
regions which are beyond the reach of human knowledge. 

Lucretius (i. 460) maintained that time has no existence of itself : 
" Tempus item per se non est." Very possibly space and time may 
have no independent existence. Very possibly there may be no such 
thing as unoccupied space, or time without an event. Most proba- 
bly space and time may not be independent of God. Still they 
exist, and exist independent of our contemplation of them. 

Dr. Thomas Brown, in an article on Villers, " Philosophie de 
Kant," in No. ii. (1803) of the Edinburgh Review^ dwells on this. 
" The truth of space and of the world being to our reasoning scepti- 
cism the same, we cannot deny space and admit the reality of sensible 
objects." D. Stewart, after affirming that the idea of space "is 
manifestly accompanied with an irresistible conviction that space is 
necessarily existent, and that its annihilation is impossible," adds, 
" to call this proposition in question is to open a door to universal 
scepticism " (Disser. p. 597), In our day we find the greatest oppo- 
nent of the Dialectic of Hegel who has appeared taking the same 
view. " Hiernach sind Raum und Zeit etwas Subjectives und zwar 
nach Kant etwas nur Subjectives. Wenn dies folgt, so verflUchtet 
sich damit die ganze Weltansicht in Erscheinung, und Erscheinung 
ist vom Scheine nicht weit entfernt. Wenn Raum und Zeit nur und 
ausschliessend Subjectives sind, so drangt sich allenthalben diese 
Zuthat ein. Wie die Luftschicht zwischen dem Auge und dem 
Gegenstande, wirft sie auf alles eine fremde Triibung; denn alles 
erscheint in Raum und Zeit, die nur aus uns geboren sind. Wir 
erkennen nun nichts an sich ; denn die Verstandesbegriffe haben 
(nach Kant) nur Anwendung durch diese Formen der Anschauung, 
und die Vernunftbegriffe suchen wieder nur eine Einheit fiir die 
Verstandeserkenntniss. "VVie wollen wir uns von dem Zauberkreise 
losen, daer vielmehrunser eigenstes Wesen ist? " (Trendelenburg, 
Logische Untersuchungen, b. i. v.) Sir W. Hamilton agrees with 
Kant as to the k priori idea of space, and to avoid the difficulties 
calls in an k posteriori notion : " We have a twofold cognition of 
space : (a) an k priori or native imagination of it in general, as a 
necessary condition of the possibility of thought ; and (b) under 



162 PRIMITIVE BELIEFS. 

that an a posteriori or adventitious percept of it, in particular as 
contingently apprehended in this or that complexus of sensations " 
(Reid's Coll. Writ, p, 882). " In this I venture a step beyond Reid 
and Stewart, no less than beyond Kant" (p. 126). A simpler and 
a more natural account of the relations between a priori and a pos- 
teriori would bring these two notions to a unity. 

It has been asked why the mind gives three dimensions to space and 
only one to time. Those who regard space and time as the creation 
of the mind may amuse themselves with answering this question. 
There is profound sense in the following remarks of Sir J. Herschel, 
in his "Review of Whewell" {Essays, p. 202) : "The reason, we 
conceive, why we apprehend things without us, is that they are with- 
out us. We take it for granted that they exist in space because 
they do so exist, and because such their existence is a matter of di- 
rect perception, which can neither be explained in words nor con- 
travened in imagination ; because, in short, space is a reality." " That 
which has parts, proportions, and susceptibilities of exact measure- 
ment, must be a ' thing.' " 

Leibnitz held space and time to be relations given to objects by 
the mind. " Je tenois I'Espace pour quelque de purement rela- 
TiF, comme le Temps ; pour un ordre de coexistence, comme 
le Temps est un ordre de successions " {Op. p. 752. See, also, 
pp.461, 756, 769). He speaks of space and time as being "rapports," 
and as " iddal." Leibnitz thus prepared the way for the more sys- 
tematic doctrine of Kant. Samuel Clarke argues powerfully that 
space and time are realities, but makes them attributes, properties, 
or modes, of an eternal substance (see his Letters to Leibnitz). D. 
Stewart, with his usual wisdom, says that " space is neitlier substance, 
nor an accident, nor a relation ; " adding, " But it does not follow 
from this that it is nothing objective " (Dissert, p. 596). 

The difficulty has been started. Are space and time made up of 
parts? and if so, are infinite time and space made up of parts? To 
this 1 reply, first and decisively, that we cannot conceive them as 
made up of partitions, or separable parts, as an apple or an orange is, 
or as the earth is, or the sun is. But then, secondly, we can con- 
ceive proportions in space and time*, and if we take any of these 
proportional sections and divide it into two, thought will compel us 
to say that the two must make up the whole. In this sense the parts 
make up the whole, that is, the sub-sections make up the section. If 
the question be extended beyond this, and it be asked, Is infinite 
space made up of parts ? I answer that, as we can have no adequate 



SPACE AND TIME. 153 

notion of infinite space, so we cannot be expected to answer all the 
questions which may be put regarding it. It is certain that neither 
infinite space nor finite space is made up of separable parts. We can 
speak intelligibly of proportions in finite space, and determine their 
relations to each other and the whole. I tremble to speak of the 
proportions of infinite space, lest I be using language which has or 
can have no proper meaning, and the signification attached to which 
by me or others might be altogether inapplicable to such a subject. 
Still there are propositions which we might intelligibly use. It is 
self-evident that any proportion of space must be less than infinite 
space, and if infinite space can be conceived as having proportions, 
and we could conceive all these proportions, then these proportions 
would be equal to the whole. But as we cannot adequately conceive 
the whole, so neither can we conceive of the proportions of the 
whole. We are in a region dark and pathless and directionless, and 
we may as Avell draw back at once, for nothing is to be gained by 
advancing. 

" Non igitur respondere curabimus iis, qui quaerunt an si daretur 
linea infinita, ejus media pars esset etiam infinita ; vel an numeras 
infinitus sit par anve impar ; et talia; quia de iis nulli videntur de- 
bere cogitare nisi qui mentem suam infinitam esse arbitrantur " (Des- 
cartes, Prin. p. i. 26). 



CHAPTER III. 

THE INFINITE. 

The subject now opening before us is a profound one. 
In meditating upon it we feel as we do when we look 
into the blue expanse of heaven, or when from a solitary- 
rock we gaze on a shoreless ocean spread all around us. 
The topic has exercised the profoundest minds since 
thought began the attempt to solve the problems of the 
universe, and has been specially discussed since Christian 
theology made men familiar with the idea of an eternal 
and omnipresent God. All that I profess to do is to en- 
deavor to discover by induction what is the mind's idea 
and conviction in regard to infinity. A priori cogitation 
is not to be tolerated in its proffered determinations of 
what our idea of Infinity should be or must be. Logical 
dissection and division, instead of aiding, may only lead 
us into hopeless difiiculties. Lofty generalizations em- 
bracing all other objects may have no application to an 
object which from its very nature must be sui generis. 

I. 

Two Negative Propositions may be established. 

The mind can form no adequate apprehension of the 
infinite, in the sense of image or phantasm. In saying 
so, I do not mean merely that we cannot construct a 
mental picture of the infinite as an attribute. Of no 
quality can the mind fashion a picture ; it cannot have 
a mental representation of transparency, apart from a 
transparent substance, and just as little can it picture 



1 



THE INFINITE. 155 

to itself infinity apart from an infinite duration, or infi- 
nite extension, or an infinite God. But it is not in this 
sense simply that the mind cannot apprehend the infi- 
nite : it cannot have before it an apprehension of an 
infinite object, say of an infinite space, or an infinite 
God. For to image a thing in our mind is to give it 
an extent and a boundary. When we would imagine 
unlimited space, we swell out an immense volume, but 
it has after all a boundary, commonly a spherical one. 
When we would picture unlimited time, we let out an 
immense line behind and before, but the rope is after 
all cut at both ends. When we would represent to our- 
selves almighty power, we call up some given act of God, 
say creating or annihilating the universe ; but after all, 
the work has a measure, and may be finished. In the 
sense of image, then, the mind cannot have any proper 
apprehension of infinity as an attribute, or of an infinite 
object. 

The mind can form no adequate logical notion of an 
infinite object. For apprehension may be considered as 
an act of the understanding as well as a mere act of the 
fantasy. We can conceive, we can think about much, 
which we cannot image. We can meditate and reason 
about such things as law, government, duty, religion, 
while yet we can form no mental picture of them. The 
grand question in this discussion is. Can we form an in- 
tellectual notion of an infinite object, say of an infinite 
God? And I feel constrained to admit and maintain 
that human intelligence can form no proper or adequate 
conception of an infinite existence. By what process 
can it be supposed to construct such a conception ? Cer- 
tainly not by abstraction, for abstraction separates, takes 
away, diminishes. It is just as certain that it cannot 
compass this end by generalization, for generalization 



156 PRIMITIVE BELIEFS. 

merely groups objects by attributes known, and unless 
we have infinity first in the individual we cannot have it 
in the general. Nor can we reach it by addition, multi- 
plication, composition ; these will give the enlarged, but 
not the unlimited : a distance of a quintillion of quin- 
tillions of years or ages has as distinct a termination as 
an ell or an inch. Nor can the understanding attain it 
by a process of ratiocination, for, unless the infinite were 
in the premise, no canon of reasoning would justify its 
having a place in the conclusion. If the intelligence 
does not find the infinite in the perception with which it 
sets out, it never could fashion it by cutting or carving, 
by construction or supraposition. 

So much may be allowed to those British philosophers 
who have been at pains to show that we can form no 
conception of the infinite, or that the notion is at best 
negative. But, on the other hand, I am prepared to 
maintain that the mind has some positive apprehension 
and belief in regard to infinity ; otherwise, why do medi- 
tative minds find the thought so often pressing itself upon 
them ? why has it such a place in our faith in God ? why 
is it ever coming up in theology ? And if we have an 
idea and conviction, it is surely possible to determine 
what they are by a careful observation of what passes 
through the mind when it would muse on the eternal, 
the omnipresent, the perfect. 

n. 

Two Positive Propositions may be laid down. 

(1.) The mind apprehends and believes that there is 
and must be something beyond its widest image and con- 
cept. Let us follow the mind in its attempt to grasp 
infinity. I have allowed that we cannot have an idea 
of infinite space and time, in the sense of imaging, pic- 



THE mFINITE. 157 

turing, or representing them. Stretch itself as it may, 
the imaging power of the mind can never go beyond an 
expansion with a boundary, commonly a globe or sphere 
of which self is the centre, and duration stretching along 
like a line, but with a beginning and an end. In respect, 
then, of the mental picture or representation, the appre- 
hension is merely of the very large or the very long, but 
still of the finite, of what might be called the indefinite, 
but not the infinite. But any account of our conviction 
as to infinity which goes no further leaves out the main, 
the peculiar element. The sailor is not led by any na- 
tive instinct to believe that the ocean has no bottom, 
simply because in letting down the sounding-line he has 
not reached the ground. When the astronomer has 
gauged space as far as his telescope can penetrate, he 
finds that there are still stars and clusters of stars, but 
he is not necessitated to believe that there must be star 
after star on and forever. The geologist in going down 
from layer to layer still finds signs of the existence of a 
previous earth, but he is not obliged to conclude that 
there must have been stratum before stratum from all 
eternity. But man is constrained to believe that what- 
ever be the point of space or time to which his eye or 
his thoughts may reach, there must be a space and time 
beyond. Whence this belief of the mind, on space and 
time being presented to it ? Whence this necessity of 
thought or belief ? This is the very phenomenon to be 
accounted for ; and yet the British school of metaphysi- 
cians can scarcely be said to have contemplated it seri- 
ously or steadfastly, with the view of unfolding the 
depth of meaning embraced in it. It implies that to 
whatever point of space or time we might go in our per- 
sons or in our fancy, there would still be a space and 
a time beyond. I can easily, in imagination, go out as 



158 'PRIMITIVE BELIEFS. 

far as the rim of the earth, or as the moon, or as the sun, 

or as the nearest star, or as the farthest star seen by the 
eye, or as the remotest star discovered as a speck in a 
nebulous cloud of light by the telescope ; but when there, 
I must believe that space still goes on, and that if I were 
carried ten thousand million times farther there would 
still be space. I can represent to myself the instant of 
time when man was created, and beyond this the time 
when the lion or the worm, or the palm or the lichen, 
were created, or when the earth or the angels were 
created ; but though this period were multiplied by itself 
millions of billions of trillions of times, I not only can- 
not believe that duration did then begin, I am con- 
strained to believe that it did not and could not then 
commence. This intuitive belief, accompanied as it is 
with a stringent necessity of feeling, is the very peculi- 
arity of the mind's conviction in regard to infinity, as 
it is one of the grandest characteristics of human intelli- 
gence. It should be added that it is a power which ever 
impresses man with his powerlessness. 

This conviction has the characters and can bear the 
tests of intuition. It is self-evident. Indeed, if it did 
not shine in its own light, it could never be seen in any 
other which we might hold up to it. It can stand the 
test of necessity. It is necessary, we must believe it 
when our intelligence is directed towards it. We can- 
not be made to believe otherwise, to believe that there is 
a limit to immensity and duration. It is, when properly 
understood, universal. The image, it is true, of space 
or time, formed by the boy or savage, may be very con- 
tracted. The widest space of which he has had any ex- 
perience may be the glorious dome spread over his head 
in the sky, and his imagination may be able to go very 
little beyond the visible heavens or the distant hills 



THE INFINITE. • 159 

which bound his view ; still he is sure that beyond there 
must be something, an " outer infinite," and perhaps he 
will be eager to know what is beyond that horizon. His 
idea of time, as a positive picture, may extend no further 
than the date of the oldest story which his grandfather 
has told him ; but he is sure that at that point duration 
did not begin, and he may be interested to know what 
happened before. 

" Heaven lies about us in our infancy. 



Hence in a season of calm weather, 

Though inland far we be, 
Our souls have sight of that immortal sea 
Which brought us hither, 

Can in a moment travel thither, 
And see the children sport upon the shore, 
And hear the mighty waters rolling evermore." 

I suspect that this is rather a poetical expression of 
what passes through the mind of infants ; but it is true 
and correct so far as it indicates that there is an imagina- 
tive tendency which from very early life goes out from 
the actual to the ideal. " Let them," says John Howe 
in his Living Temple^ "therefore reject it if they can. 
They will feel it reimposing itself upon them whether 
they will or no, and sticking as close to their minds as 
their very thinking power itself." But this is not all 
that is comprised in the conviction. 

(2.) We apprehend and are constrained to believe in 
regard to the objects which we look upon as infinite that 
they are incapable of augmentation. Here, as in every 
apprehension which we have of infinity, the imaging 
power of the mind fails and must fail : still we have an 
image and an intellectual conception ; say, an image 
with a notion of extension, or duration, or Deity. Or 



160 PRIMITIVE BELIEFS. 

we represent to ourselves the Divine Being, with certain 
attributes, — say, as wise or as good, — and our belief as 
to him and these attributes is, that he cannot be wiser 
or better. This aspect may be appropriately designated 
as the Perfect. This is the conviction of the Perfect, of 
which many profound philosophers make so much, but 
not more, as I think, than they are entitled to do ; though 
they have not, as it appears to me, always given the cor- 
rect account of the nature and of the genesis of the 
notion. We think of God as having all his attributes 
such that no addition could be made to them ; and we 
call such attributes his perfections. In regard, indeed, 
to the moral attributes of Deity, it is this significant 
word Perfect, rather than infinite, which expresses the 
conviction which we are led to entertain in regard, for 
example, to the wisdom, or benevolence, or righteousness 
of God. 

This, too, seems a native conviction of the mind. It 
needs, indeed, a certain matter provided for it, and to 
which it may adhere. In a positive state it springs up 
late, and grows slowly in all minds to which it is not 
externally given by education, out of the Bible or other- 
wise. Still it is there in the mind as a tendency, placing 
before every man some sort of " Idea " in the Platonic 
sense ; a model, or heau ideal, which he is ever prompted 
to strive after, while he is made to feel that he has not 
reached it. It is this impulse, I apprehend, which makes 
even the heathens speak of their gods, or at least their 
supreme god, as ineffably good and immortal: the actual 
conceptions of his excellence and duration may be ex- 
tremely inadequate, still they will not allow that there 
could be any increase made to his attributes ; and, under 
fostering circumstances, the conviction will come out in 
a more decided form. When the object is brought under 



THE INFINITE. 161 

our notice, we see that it is perfect, that it must be per- 
fect, and that it cannot be otherwise. The faith is uni- 
versal, but the conception takes the form which may be 
given it by the education or the intellectual strength and 
growth of the individual. 

But it will be urged that these two aspects or sides of 
infinity are inconsistent. According to the one, infinity 
is something to which something can be ever added ; 
whereas, according to the other, it is something to which 
nothing can be added. But in this, as in every other case 
of apparent or alleged contradiction among our original 
perceptions, the inconsistency vanishes on a careful 
inspection of the pi^ecise nature of the convictions. 
The infinite is something beyond our image or notion; 
but it is not something beyond the infinite itself. It is 
something which admits of no increase, but that some- 
thing is not the imperfect notion we form, and which we 
know to be imperfect. The two are not contradic- 
tory, but the one is supplementary to the other. They 
cannot, however, be represented as the complement the 
one of the other ; for, while they make up such an appre- 
hension as the finite mind of man can form, they do not 
make up the infinite itself, which is confessedly far be- 
yond. The first of these views tends to humble us, as 
showing how far our creature impotency is below Creator 
Power. The other has rather a tendency to elevate us, 
by showing a perfect exemplar, which is indeed far above 
us, but to which we may ever look up. The Perfect 
shines above us like the sun in the heavens, distant and 
unapproachable, dazzling and blinding us as we would 
gaze on it, but still our eye ever tends to turn up towards 
it, and we feel that it is a blessed thing that there is such 
a light, and that we are permitted to walk in it and re- 
joice in it. 



162 PRIMITIVE BELIEFS. 

III. 

From this account we see that there is both an idea 
and a belief in our apprehension of the infinite. I have 
admitted that the image and the notion are not adequate. 
Still there is always an idea. Round this, as a body, the 
belief gathers, as the atmosphere does round the earth. 
First, there must always be an image and a notion of an 
existing thing, say space or time; or, as far more con- 
ceivable, a living and an intelligent God. The mind 
labors to heighten, to deepen, to widen, this idea on 
every side. It is after all within limits; but it can in- 
quire what is beyond. It can do more : it can look out 
on what is beyond. It can do yet more : it knows that 
there is something beyond, and perceives somewhat of it. 
It is sure, for example, that, as far as it has gone in space, 
there is a space beyond ; far as it has gone in time, there 
is a time beyond; much as it has conceived of God, there 
is, after all, more of the Divine perfections. There is 
thus a conception of an object ; there is thus, too, a con- 
ception of this same object being beyond, and still fur- 
ther. The belief attaches to this conception, and declares 
that this thing conceived, this thing conceived as still 
beyond, is a reality, and that it is such that it cannot 
be increased. My readers must consult their own con- 
sciousness as to whether the account now given of the 
nature and genesis of our conviction is the correct one. 

This notion, with its adhering belief, is a mental phe- 
nomenon which we have a word to express. We can 
subject it to logical processes ; it comes in, like all our 
perceptions, in the concrete ; it is something, say space, 
time, or Deity, we apprehend as infinite ; but we can 
abstract the infinite from the object regarded as infinite, 
and form the abstract idea of infinity. We can gener- 



THE INFINITE. 163 

alize it, and use it as a predicate : thus we can talk of 
space and time and God as being infinite. We can utter 
judgments regarding it, as that the infinite God is in 
every given place ; there is no place of which we may 
not say, " Surely the Lord is in this place." We can 
even reason about it ; thus we can infer that this puny 
effort of man, set against the recorded will of God, shall 
most certainly be frusti-ated by his infinite power. 
Keeping within the limits prescribed by the nature of 
the convictions, man can speak about the infinite and be 
intelligible ; he can legitimately employ it in argument, 
and he can muse upon it, and find it to be among the 
most ennobling and precious of themes. 

And yet it is true all the while that the notion is en- 
gulfed in mystery. It is of all things the most prepos- 
terous in certain speculators to set out with the idea of 
the infinite without a previous induction of its nature, 
and thence proceed, consecutively or deductively, to draw 
out a body of philosophy or theology. Such men have 
lost themselves in attempting to voyage an " unreal, vast, 
unbounded deep of horrible confusion ; " and yet they 
would seek to pilot others, only to conduct them into 
darker gloom and more inextricable straits, and, in the 
end, bottomless abysses. The account we have given of 
the conception and belief, shows how narrow the limits 
within which man can make intelligible assertions ; how 
strait the road in which he must walk, if he would not 
lose himself in wilderness and in morass. He who passes 
these bounds is talking without a meaning ; he who 
would start with the notion of the absolute, and thence 
construct a system embracing God, the world, and man, 
will without fail land himself in helpless and hopeless 
contradictions, — the necessary consequent and the ap- 
propriate punishment of his folly and presumption. 



164 PRIMITIVE BELIEFS. 

IV. 

The question is here started, What is it that we are to 
regard as infinite ? And here it is of importance to remind 
the reader that, as a native law or regulative law in the 
mind, oar intuition as to the infinite is a tendency or apt- 
itude, and not perception or knowledge. In this respect 
it is like our other inborn convictions. Man is endowed 
by nature with senses, but the senses do not perceive till 
an object is presented. On falling in with a phenome- 
non we look for a cause, but (as we shall see) it is by 
experience, and not by intuition, that we know what the 
cause is. We all have a conscience which prepares us 
for discerning between good and evil, but it is not till a 
voluntary action is presented that we pronounce a de- 
cision. So with our conviction as to infinity : the innate 
law is a tendency to look out beyond the actual, and to 
seek for the perfect. In order to the exercise and mani- 
festation of the disposition, there must be an object made 
known and conceived, and on which the conviction may 
fasten. What the object is must be determined by an 
inductive observation of the exercises. 

(1.) We look on infinity as an attribute of an object. 
The infinite is not to be viewed as having an independent 
being ; it is not to be regarded as a substance or a sepa- 
rate entity: it is simply the quality of a thing, very pos- 
sibly the attribute of the attribute of an object. Thus 
we apply the phrase to the Divine Being to denote a 
perfection of his nature ; we apply it also to all his per- 
fections, such as his wisdom and goodness, which we 
describe as infinite. It is the more necessary to insist 
on this view, from the circumstance that metHphysicians 
are very much tempted to give an independent being to 
abstractions ; and, in particular, some of them write 



THE INFINITE. 165 

about the infinite in such a way as to make their readers 
look upon it as a separate existence. I stand up for the 
reality of infinity, but I claim for it a reality simply as 
an attribute of some existing object. Let us endeavor to 
ascertain what the object is. 

(2.) We look on space and time as infinite, and believe 
in the possibility of infinite being or substance. We 
cannot be made to believe that at any given point space 
should cease, or that at any given instant time should 
begin, or should come to an end. But let us consider 
how much is implied in this. Place and time are looked 
upon by us mainly as conditions of the possibility of 
the existence of other objects. Wherever there is space 
there may be active existence, and in all time there may 
be events happening. The infinity of space and time 
thus implies the possibility of infinite being to dwell in 
them. There is ever felt to be an emptiness about pure 
space and time. We know not in fact of a space or time 
without a substantial existence in them. I do indeed 
maintain, on tlie ground of ineradicable conviction, that 
we must believe them to be independent of ourselves 
contemplating them, or of material objects placed in 
them. But the mind has a difficulty in conceiving of 
them as altogether separate and independent entities. It 
is from this cause, I am convinced, that so many philoso- 
phers represent them as mere relations of things rather 
than things, or as forms given to objects by the mind, or 
as mere conditions of existence. These are very incor- 
rect representations ; still the very fact tliat they have 
been advanced is an evidence of the difficulty which the 
mind expei-iences in grasping the realities of empty space 
and time, which do look as if they were voids to be filled 
up. Independent of us, they scarcely look as if they were 
independent of a substantial existence. I am not pre- 



166 PRIMITIVE BELIEFS. 

pared to afl&rm with S. Clarke that they are modes of 
substance ; but I have little to say against another state- 
ment of the same author, that " they are immediate and 
necessary consequences of the existence of God, and that 
without them his Eternity and Ubiquity would be taken 
away ; " or the statement of Newton, that " God consti- 
tutes time and space." The mind feels as if there were 
something wanting, till it learns of One to occupy the 
vacuum ; but it is met and gratified in every one of its 
intellectual and moral intuitions when it is brought to 
know Him who inhabiteth eternity and immensity, and 
fiUeth them with living and life-giving fulness. 

(3.) Our intuition is satisfied only hy the contemplation 
of an infinite God. I am not convinced that our intui- 
tive convictions as to infinity, of themselves, and apart 
from auxiliary considerations, guarantee the existence of 
infinite substance. I am sure they give no sanction to 
the doctrine held by so many of the ancient Greek phi- 
losophers, that material substance is eternal ; we can 
easily conceive and believe matter to have been brought 
into existence at some point in time by a power adequate 
to produce it. It does not appear to me that we are con- 
strained by our convictions on this special subject, taken 
apart from all other evidence, to believe in the existence 
of an eternal or omnipresent God. Herein I have al- 
ways thought that the argument a priori or intuitive in 
behalf of the Divine existence fails. There is a link 
wanting which shows that the proof is not apodictic or 
demonstrative; that it is not founded on truths which 
are self-evident throughout, as is, for example, the propo- 
sition that the opposite angles made by the intersection 
of two straight lines are equal. We have and can have 
no such demonstrative evidence of other truths to which 
the mind cleaves most resolutely ; as, for example, that 



I 



THE INFINITE. 167 

we ever had a sister, or brother, or friend, or that we 
ever sat under the shelter of a father's wisdom, or were 
refreshed by the dews of a mother's tenderness. There 
is need of other considerations, and particularly of an 
experiental element, in the form of certain obvious facts, 
to prove the existence of a being dwelling in infinite 
time and space, and possessed of infinite power and good- 
ness. I may have occasion to show that when the patent 
facts and native convictions are brought together, the 
certainty is of the very highest order short of demonstra- 
tion, which it falls beneath only so far as not absolutely 
to preclude the possibility of doubt when the fool is 
determined to say in his heart, " There is no God." It 
would be premature to bring forward in detailed array 
these combined considerations at this stage of our in- 
quiries, and to show how the order and adaptation in 
nature are evidence of a designing and planning mind ; 
how the evident effects in nature evoke the intuition 
which demands that there be a cause : how our convic- 
tions of moral obligation imply a law, the embodiment of 
the nature of a lawgiver ; and how all these unite to 
establish the existence of a living being, intelligent and 
holy. When this being is made known to us by these 
or by other means, our conviction as to infinity fastens 
on it as its appropriate object, and we believe that He 
who made all things, and who is thus powerful, thus 
benevolent, thus holy, is and must be the Infinite, the 
Perfect. 

The nature of man's conviction in regard to infinity is 
fitted to impress us, at one and the same time, with the 
strength and the weakness of human intelligence, which 
is powerful in that it can apprehend so much, but feeble 
in that it can apprehend no more. The idea entertained 
is felt to be inadequate, but this is one of its excellences, 



168 PRIMITIVE BELIEFS. 

that it is felt to be inadequate ; for it would indeed be 
lamentably deficient if it did not acknowledge of itself that 
it falls infinitely beneath the magnitude of the object. 
The mind is led by an inward tendency to stretch its 
ideas wider and wider, but is made to know at the most 
extreme point which it has reached that there is some- 
thing further on. It is thus impelled to be ever striving 
after something which it has not yet reached, and to 
look beyond the limits of time into eternity beyond, in 
which there is the prospect of a noble occupation in be- 
holding, through ages which can come to no end and a 
space which has no bounds, the manifestations of a might 
and an excellence of which we can never know all, but 
of which we may ever know more. It is an idea which 
would ever allure us up towards a God of infinite perfec- 
tion, and yet make us feel, more and more impressively 
the higher we ascend, that we are, after all, infinitely 
beneath him. Man's capacity to form such an idea is a 
proof that he was formed by an infinite God, and in the 
image of an infinite God ; his incapacity, in spite of all 
his efforts to form a higher idea, is fitted to show us how 
wide the space and how impassable the gulf which sepa- 
rates man as finite from God the infinite. 

They are in error who conclude that they cannot know 
an infinite God, but they are equally in error who sup- 
pose that they can reach a perfect knowledge of him. 
There is a sense in which he may be desci'ibed as the 
unknown God, for no human intellect can come to know 
all the attributes of God, or even know all about any 
one of his perfections ; but there is a sense in which he 
is emphatically the known God, inasmuch as he has 
been pleased to manifest and reveal himself, and every 
human being is required to attain a clear and positive, 
though at the same time a necessarily inadequate, knowl- 



THE INFINITE. 169 

edge of liim. It is true, on the one band, that the in- 
visible things of God from tlie creation of the world are 
clearly seen, being understood from the things which are 
made, even his eternal power and Godhead ; but it is 
equally true, on the other, that we cannot by search- 
ing find out God, that we cannot find out the Almighty 
unto perfection. The wide finite, with its horizon ever 
widening as we ascend, should call forth our admiration, 
our adoration, and our love ; the wider infinite, which 
is round about, and into which we can only gaze as we 
often gaze into the deep skj'-, should impress us with a 
feeling of awe in reference to Him who fills it all, and 
a feeling of humility in reference to ourselves who can 
know so little. 

He who dwells in infinity is at once a God who reveals 
and a God who conceals himself. We can know, but 
we can know only in part. The knowledge which we 
can attain is the clearest, and yet the obscurest, of all 
our knowledge. A child, a savage, can acquire a certain 
acquaintance with him, while neither sage nor angel can 
rise to a full comprehension of him. God may be truly 
described as the Being of whom we know the most, inas- 
much as his works are ever pressing themselves upon 
our attention, and we behold more of his ways than of 
the ways of any other ; and yet he is the Being of whom 
we know the least, inasmuch as we know comparatively 
less of his whole nature than we do of ourselves or of 
our fellow-men, or of any object falling under our senses. 
They who know the least of him have in this the most 
valuable of all knowledge ; they who know the most, 
know but little after all of his glorious perfections. 
Let us prize what knowledge we have, but feel mean- 
while that our knowledge is comparative ignorance. 
They who know little of him may feel as if they know 



170 PRIMITIVE BELIEFS. 

much ; they who know much will always feel that they 

know little. The most limited knowledge of him should 
be felt to be precious, but this mainly as an encourage- 
ment to seek knowledge higher and yet higher, without 
limit and without end. They who in earth or heaven 
know the most, know that they know little after all ; but 
they know that they may know more and more of him 
throughout eternal ages. 

Hobbes, following out his theory that all our ideas are derived 
from sensation, reaches the conclusion : "Whatever we imagine is 
finite. There is therefore no idea or conception which can arise 
from this word infinite. The human mind cannot comprehend the 
idea (image) of infinite magnitude, nor conceive infinite swiftness, 
infinite force, infinite time, or infinite power. When we say that 
anything is infinite, we only mean by this that we are not able to 
conceive the bounds or limits of that thing, or to conceive any other 
thing except our own impotence. Therefore the name of God is not 
employed that we may conceive of him, for he is incomprehensible, 
and his greatness and power inconceivable, but that we may honor 
him " {Leviathan, iii.). " When we say that anything is infinite we 
do not intend any quality in the thing itself, but a want of power in our 
own minds ; as if we should say that we know not whether it has limits 
or where. Nor can it be reverently said of God that we have an idea 
of him in our minds; for an idea is our conception, and there is no 
conception of anything but what is finite " (Z)e Cive, xv.). This doc- 
trine was at once observed to have an atheistical tendency, and John 
Francis Buddseus remarks : " What Hobbes affirms is therefore most 
false, that the word ' infinite ' onl}' signifies that we cannot conceive 
the limits of what is so called. For he erroneously passes over what 
is positive in the idea of an infinite being, and allows only what is 
negative; and the positive idea he explains thus : ' For, first of all, 
we conceive a certain supreme idea of perfection ; then we confess 
that this perfection is so great that we cannot reach its bounds or 
limits ' " {Theses de Atheismo et Superstitione, v., quoted in Harrison's 
Notes to Cudworth's Intellectual System, Vol. ii. p. 593). 

Locke was prevented, by the defects of his theory and his antipa- 
thy to innate ideas, from developing all that is in our conviction of 
infinity. Yet, while he maintains that our idea of the infinite is 
negative, he admits " that it has something of positive in all those 



THE INFINITE. 171 

things we apply to it, inasmuch as the mind comprehends so much 
of the object " (Essay, ii. xvii. 15). He even admits, though rather 
incidentally, that the mind has a necessary conviction as to the ex- 
istence of an infinite. Thus, speaking of space, he says the mind 
" must necessarily conclude it, by the very Nature and Idea of each 
part of it, to be actually infinite " (4). Again: " I think it unavoid- 
able, for every considering rational creature that will but examine 
his own or any other existence, to have the notion of an eternal 
wise Being who had no beginning ; and such an Idea of infinite dura- 
tion I am sure I have " (17). It is to be regretted that Locke never 
unfolded all that is contained in these " necessary " and " unavoid- 
able " mental processes. 

Hamilton says our notion of infinity is an "impotency," say an 
impotency to conceive that space and time should have bounds. I 
am endeavoring to show in these paragraphs that there is more than 
this. Hamilton maintains that a conception of the infinite is impos- 
sible, because of certain laws or conditions of human intelligence. 
In particular. Dr. Mansel maintains that it is one condition of con- 
sciousness that we distinguish between one object and another, and 
a second that we perceive the relation between subject and object, 
both of which imply limitation and relation. These laws will be 
examined (infra, p. 187, foot-note). Hamilton admits that we have 
a belief in the infinite : "The sphere of our belief is much more 
extensive than the sphere of our knowledge, and therefore, when I 
deny that the infinite can by us be known, I am far from denying 
that by us it is, must, and ought to be believed. This T have indeed 
anxiously evinced both by reason and authority " (Metaph. Vol. ii. 
App. p. 530). But if this faith be beyond consciousness, his view is 
liable to all the objections which he urges so powerfully against the 
theory of Schelling, " which founds philosophy on the annihilation 
of consciousness " (Discuss. Art. Philos. of Unconditioned). On the 
other hand, if this faith be within consciousness, as he evidently 
supposes when he says (Metaph. Vol. x. p. 191), " Knowledge and 
belief are both contained under consciousness," then the objections 
derived from the conditions of consciousness, which he urges against 
the knowledge and idea, apply equally to the belief. Besides, must 
not a belief in a thing of which we have no conception, be a belief 
in Zero f The mind is shut up, it is supposed, into this belief, by 
the principles of contradiction and excluded middle, which requires 
that of two extremes (the absolute and infinite) exclusive of each 
other, one must be admitted as necessary. But then both these ex- 



172 PRIMITIVE BELIEFS. 

tremes, i. e., the absolute and infinite, are represented as inconceiv- 
able, and I rather think it would defy Hamilton or any other man to 
tell the contradictory of what is inconceivable. Of this I am sure, 
that the laws of contradiction and excluded middle, derived from 
our conceptions, can be applied only to what we conceive, and can 
have no meaning as referring to what we cannot conceive. He main- 
tains that our conceptions as to the infinite land us in contradictions. 
" We are altogether unable to conceive space as bounded, as finite; 
that is, as a whole beyond which there is no further space." " On the 
other hand, we are equally powerless to realize in thought the pos- 
sibility of the opposite contradictory. We cannot conceive space 
infinite or without bound " (Melaph. Lect. 38). I may be permitted to 
quote the criticism I have offei-ed on tliis alleged contradiction : " The 
seeming contradiction here arises from the double sense in which the 
word ' conceive ' is used. In the second of these counter-proposi- 
tions, the word is used in the sense of imaging, or representing in 
consciousness, as when the mind's eye pictures a fish or a mermaid. 
In this signification we cannot have an idea or notion of the infinite. 
But the thinking, judging, believing power of the mind is not the 
same as the imaging power. The mind can think of the class fish, 
or even of the imaginary class mermaid, while it cannot picture the 
class. Now, in the first of the opposed propositions, the word ' con- 
ceive ' is taken in the sense of thinking, deciding, being convinced. 
We picture space as bounded, but we cannot think, judge, or believe 
it to be bounded. When thus explained, all appearance of contra- 
diction disappears: indeed, all contradictions which the Kantians, 
Hegelians, and Hamiltonians are so fond of discovering between 
our intuitive convictions will vanish, if we but carefully inquire into 
the nature of the convictions. Both propositions, when rightly un- 
derstood, are true, and there is no contradiction. They stand thus : 
* We cannot image space as without bounds;' 'we cannot think 
that it has bounds, or believe that it has bounds.' The former may 
perhaps be a creature impotency; the latter is most assuredly a 
creature potency, — is one of the most elevated and elevating con- 
victions of which the mind is possessed, and is a conviction of which 
it can never be shorn." 

It is of something, say of space, or of the attribute of something, 
aay of the power of God, that we predicate that they are infinite. 
This certainly implies that no space can be added to infinite space, 
but does not imply that space, because it is infinite, must contain all 
existence, must comprise, say wisdom and goodness. It implies that 



THE INFINITE. 173 

God cannot be more righteous than he is, but does not involve that 
his righteousness or even that his being must embrace all being. 
Dr. Mansel, in the Limits of Religious Thought, 3d ed. p. 46, quotes 
the language of Hegel : " What kind of an Absolute Being is that 
which does not contain in itself all that is actual, even evil in- 
cluded ? " and refers to Schelling, Schleiermacher, and Parker as 
holding similar views. I am sure that the mind is not shut up into 
any such doctrine by its native convictions. Against such a view the 
artillery of Hamilton and Mansel tells with irresistible power. 
They have shown most conclusively that such a notion involves in- 
extricable confusion and hopeless contradictions. I freely abandon 
such a conception to them, to tear it to pieces with their remorseless 
logic. But I decidedly demur to the statement of Dr. Mansel, " that 
•which is conceived as absolute and infinite must be conceived as con- 
taining within itself the sum, not only of all actual, but of all possi- 
ble modes of being." I have nothing here to say as to the absolute, 
but I do affirm that we have a conception as to the infinite, the per- 
fect — I do not say of the infinite, the perfect — which does not 
imply this consequence, and that we can both think and speak of 
infinity without falling into contradictions. I hold it to be quite 
possible to muse and reason about the attribute " infinite," as it is 
in fact conceived and believed in by the mind, without falling into 
the difficulties in which the German supporters of the absolute have 
involved themselves ; and that we can think of God and write 
about God as infinite, without being compelled by any logical ne- 
cessity to look upon him as embracing all existence, or to reckon it 
impossible or inconceivable that he should create a world and liv- 
ing agents different from himself. We cannot conceive that God's 
power should be increased, but we can conceive it exercised in 
creating beings possessed of power. We cannot conceive his good- 
ness to be enlarged, but we can, without a contradiction, conceive 
him creating other beings also good. Nor are we by this conception 
shut up to the conclusion that the creature-power or creature-excel- 
lence might be added to the divine power and goodness, and thus 
make it greater. To all quibbles proceeding in this line, I say that 
for aught I know it may not be possible they should be added, or that, 
if added, they should increase the divine perfections; and no reply 
could be given, drawn either from intuition or experience, the only 
lights to which I can allow an appeal. Nor will I venture to affirm 
how much truth there is in the following statement of Howe (Liring 
Temple, Part i. Chap, iv.) : "This necessarily is such to which 



174 PRIMITIVE BELIEFS. 

nothing can be added, so as that it should be really greater or better 
or more perfect than it was before." But then it is said, could you 
not add the finite, and " is there, therefore, nothing more of existent 
being than there was before this production?" It is answered, 
" Nothing more than virtually was before ; for when we suppose an 
infinite being, and afterwards a finite, this finite is not to be looked 
upon as emerging or springing up of itself out of nothing ; or pro- 
ceeding fi'om some third thing as its cause, but as produced by that 
infinite, or springing out of that which it could not do but as being 
before virtually contained in it. For the infinite produces nothing 
which it could not produce, and what it could produce was before- 
hand contained in it as in the power of its cause." 

I had noticed both these aspects of infinity before I discovered 
that I had been anticipated by Aristotle in Phys. Aus. iii. 6. He 
describes the infinite as that which has always something beyond: 
oh yap ov fiTjSev t^ci), aW' oS dei ti e^a> eVri, rovTO &ireip6v icTTiv. But then 
the complete, the entire, is that which has nothing beyond : ov 5e 
li.7}^ev e^t», TovT iffTl re\ewv Kal o\ov. I look on both these remarkable 
expressions as applicable, the one to our idea, the other to the object. 
Sir W. Hamilton would identify the '6\ov with the German " Abso- 
lute," but Aristotle gives a homelier account when he describes the 
"whole " as that which needs nothing beyond, " as a man or a cas- 
ket." It could be shown that theologians, in laboring to describe 
infinity, have very often caught glimpses of one or other or both 
these characteristics, and have fixed them with more or less clearness 
and decision. 

In musing on divine things, the thought occurred to Anselm that 
it might be possible to find a single argument which would of itself 
prove that there is a God, and that he is the Supreme Good. Man, 
he says, is able to form a conception of something than which noth- 
ing greater can be conceived; and this conception, he argues, implies 
the existence of a corresponding being (^Proslogion). A similar ar- 
gument occurred to Descartes. He found in himself the idea of a 
Perfect being ; and he argues that in this idea the existence of the 
Being is comprised, as the equality of the three angles to two right 
angles is comprised in the idea of a triangle (Meth. p. 4, etc.). Leib- 
nitz acknowledges that the argument is valid ; provided he is 
allowed to supply a missing link, and to show that it is possible 
that God should exist {Op. p. 273). It may be doubted whether 
these arguments for the Divine Existence, derived from the mere idea 



THE INFINITE. 175 

of the Perfect, are valid, independent of external facts. But these 
eminent men are right in saying that the mind has some conception 
and conviction as to the perfect ; and these combine, with the obser- 
vation of traces of design, to enable us to construct an argument for 
the Divine Existence. 



CHAPTER IV. 

THE EXTENT, TESTS, AND POWER OF OUR NATIVE 
BELIEFS. 

The above are some of the principal — I will not ven- 
ture to say that they are the vrhole — of our native 
beliefs. As they grow upon our native cognitions, so 
they attach themselves to our primitive judgments, in 
most of which there is more or less of the faith element, 
that is, belief in the existence of an object not directly 
known. There is belief, for instance, involved in the 
judgment that this effect has a cause, which cause may 
be unknown. There is belief, too, exercised in certain 
of our moral judgments, as when we believe in the in- 
tegrity of a good man, or trust in the word of God, even 
when his providence seems in opposition. But these are 
topics which fall to be discussed specially in subsequent 
books. 

It is scarcely necessary to remark that faith is an af- 
fection of mind, not limited to our primary convictions. 
Faith collects round our observational knowledge, and 
even around the conclusions reached by inference. We 
believe — the course of nature being unchanged by its 
Author — that the seed cast into the ground in spring 
will yield a return in autumn, that the sun will rise to- 
morrow as he has done to-day, and that the planet Saturn 
a year hence will be found in the very place calculated 
for us by the astronomer. We exercise faith, every one 
of us, in listening to the testimony of credible witnesses, 
and faith is in one of its liveliest forms when it becomes 



EXTENT, TESTS, AND POWER OF OUR NATIVE BELIEFS. 177 

trust in the ability, the excellence, and the love of a 
fellow-creature. Our highest faiths are those in which 
there is a mixture of the observational and intuitional 
elements, the observational supplying the object, and 
the intuitional imparting to them a profundity and a 
power as resting on an immovable foundation and going 
out into the vast and unbounded. In particular, when 
God has been revealed, faith ever clusters round him as 
its appropriate object. 

There are canons whereby to try the trustworthiness 
of our beliefs. First, so far as our intuitive beliefs are 
concerned, there are the general tests of intuition. Take 
our belief in the infinite. We have to ask, Is the truth 
believed in self-evident, or does it lean on something 
else ? Is it necessary ? Can we believe that space and 
time and the Being dwelling in them have limits ? Is it 
universal, that is, do men ever practically believe that 
they can come to the verge of time and space ? Such 
queries as these will settle for us at once what beliefs are 
original and fundamental. We should put these ques- 
tions to every belief that may suggest itself to our own 
minds. We are entitled to put them to every faith 
which may be pressed on us by others. Then, secondly, 
as to our derivative or observational beliefs, there are the 
ordinary rules of evidence, as enunciated in works of 
special or applied logic, or as stated in books on the par- 
ticular departments of knowledge, or, more frequently, 
as caught up by common experience, and incorporated 
into the good sense of mankind. In no such case are we 
to believe without proof being supplied, and we are en- 
titled and required to examine the evidence. Thirdly^ 
as to mixed cases in which our faith proceeds partly on 
intuition and partly on observation, our business is care- 
fully to separate the two, and to judge each by its appro- 



178 PRIMITIVE BELIEFS. 

priate tests. In the use of such rules as these, while led 
to yield to the faith sanctioned by our rational nature, 
we shall at the same time be saved from those extrava- 
gant credences which are recommended to us by unau- 
thorized authority, by mysticism which has confused it- 
self, by superstition, by bigotry, by fanaticism, by pride, 
or by passion. 

Looked at under one aspect, belief might be consid- 
ered as so far a weakness cleaving to man, for where he 
has faith, other and higher beings may have immediate 
knowledge. But when contemplated under other as- 
pects, it is an element of vast strength. In heaven, 
much of what here faith is, will be brightened into sight, 
but even in heaven faith abideth. Our faiths widen in- 
definitely the sphere of our convictions ; they surround 
our solid cognitions with an atmosphere in which it is 
bracing and exhilarating to walk, which no doubt has its 
mists and clouds, but has also a kindling and irradiating 
capacity, and may be warmed into the fervor and reflect 
the very light of heaven in a thousand varied colors. 
He who would tear off from the mind its proper beliefs, 
would in the very act be shearing it of one of its principal 
glories. 

What a power even in our earthly faiths, as when men 
sow in the assurance that they shall reap after a long 
season, and labor in the confidence of a reward at a far 
distance ! What an efl&cacy in the trust which the child 
reposes in the parent, which the scholar puts in his mas- 
ter, which the soldier places in his general, and which the 
lover commits to the person beloved ! These are among 
the chief potencies which have been moving mankind to 
good, or, alas ! to evil. As it walks steadfastly on, it dis- 
covers an outlet where sense thought that the path was 
shut in and closed. Difficulties give way as it advances. 



EXTENT, TESTS, AND POWER OF OUR NATIVE BELIEFS. 179 

and impossibilities to prudence speedily become accom- 
plishments before the might and energy of faith. To it 
we owe the greatest achievements which mankind have 
effected in art, in travel, in conquest ; setting out in 
search of the unseen, they have made it seen and palpa- 
ble. It was thus that Columbus persevered till the long- 
hoped-for country burst on his view : it is always thus 
that men discover new lands and new worlds outside 
those previously known. 

But faith has ever a tendency to go out with strong 
pinions into infinity, which it feels to be its proper ele- 
ment. It has a telescopic power, whereby it looks on 
vast and remote objects, and beholds them as near and 
at hand. There is a constancy in its course and a steadi- 
ness in its progress, because its- eye is fixed on a pole-star 
far above our earth. How lofty its mien as it moves on, 
looking upward and onward, and not downward and 
backward, with an eye kindled by the brilliancy of the 
object at which it looks ! Hence its power, a power 
drawn from the attraction of the world above. No ele- 
ment in all nature so potent. The lightning cannot 
move with the same velocity ; light does not travel so 
quick from the sun to the earth as faith does from earth 
to heaven. It heaves up, as by an irresistible hydrostatic 
pressure, the load which would press on the bosom. It 
glows like the heat, it burns like the fire, and obstacles 
are consumed before its devouring progress. Persecution, 
coming like the wind to extinguish it, only fans it into 
a brighter flame. 

The proper object of faith is, after all, the Divine 
Being. Time and space and infinity seem empty and 
dead and cold, till faith fills them with the Divine Pres- 
ence, quickens them with the Divine Life, and warms 
them with the Divine Love. When thus grounded, how 



180 PRIMITIVE BELIEFS. 

stable ! firmer than sense can ever be, for the objects at 
which it looks are more abiding. " The things which 
are seen are temporal, but the things which are unseen 
are eternal." When thus fixed, the soul is at rest, as 
secure in Him to whom it adheres. When thus directed, 
all its acts, even the meanest, become noble, being sanc- 
tified by the divine end which they contemplate. All 
doubts are now decided on the right side by eternity 
being cast into the scale. When thus associated, its 
might is irresistible. It carries with it, and this accord- 
ing to the measure of it, the power of God. It is, no 
doubt, weak in that it leans, but it is strong in that it 
leans on the arm of the Omnipotent. It is a creature 
impotency which makes us lay hold of the Creator's 
power. 



BOOK in. 

PRIMITIVE JUDGMENTS. 
CHAPTER I. 

THEIR GENERAL NATURE, AND A CLASSIFICATION 
OF THEM. 

I. 

The mind of man has a set of Simple Cognitive — 
called by Sir William Hamilton Presentative — Powers, 
such as Sense-Perception and Self-Consciousness, by which 
it knows objects before it. From these we obtain our 
Primitive Cognitions. It has also a set of Reproductivo 
Powers, such as the Memory and the Imagination, by 
which it recalls the past in old forms or in new disposi- 
tions. Out of them arise many of our Faiths, as in the 
existence of objects which have fallen under our notice 
in time past, and in an infinity surpassing our utmost 
powers of imagination. But the mind has also a Power 
of Comparison by which it perceives Relations and forms 
Judgments. 

Our Primitive Judgments are formed from our Primi- 
tive Cognitions and Primitive Beliefs, On comparing 
two or more objects known or believed in, or, we may 
add, imagined, we discover that they bear a necessary 
relation to each other. The necessity of the relation 
arises from the nature of the things. We discover that 
objects have a certain relation because of their nature as 
it has become known to us, or as we have been led to 



182 PRIMITIVE JUDGMENTS. 

believe it to be ; and whenever we are led to discover a 
necessary relation, it is because we have such an ac- 
quaintance with things as to observe that there is a rela- 
tion implied in their very nature. It should be added, 
that because of our limited and imperfect knowledge, 
there may be many necessary relations which are alto- 
gether unknown to us, even among objects which are so 
far known. 

In accepting this account, we are saved from the ex- 
travagant positions taken up by many metaphysicians as 
to the a priori judgments of the mind, which they repre- 
sent as fashioned by a power of reason independent of 
things, whereas they are formed on the contemplation 
of things, and of the nature of things, so far as appre- 
hended. Such questions as the following are often put 
by ingenious minds : How is it that two straight lines 
cannot enclose a space? How is it that time appears 
like a line stretching behind and before, whereas the 
analogous thing, space, extends in three dimensions ? 
The proper reply is, that all this follows from the very 
nature of space and time. And if the question be put, 
How do we know that two straight lines cannot enclose 
a space, and that time has length without breadth? the 
answer is, that all this is involved in our primary knowl- 
edge of space and time. No other answer can be given ; 
no other answer should be attempted. Our primitive 
judgments proceed on our primitive cognitions and be- 
liefs, which again are founded on the nature of things, 
as we are constituted to discover it. 

II. 

It will be necessary at this place to examine a very 
common representation that the mind begins with Judg- 
ments, rather than the knowledge of individual things. 



THEIR GENERAL NATURE. 188 

and that there is judgment or comparison in all knowl- 
edge. According to Locke, knowledge is nothing but the 
perception of the connection and agreement, or disagree- 
ment and repugnancy, of any two ideas. Sir W. Hamil- 
ton and Dr. Mansel maintain that in every cognitive act 
there is judgment or comparison. In opposition to Locke, 
I hold that the mind does not commence with ideas and 
the comparison of ideas, but with the knowledge of 
things, of which it can ever after form ideas, and which 
it is able to compare. I reckon it impossible for the 
mind, from mere ideas not comprising knowledge, or 
from the comparison of such ideas, ever to rise to knowl- 
edge, to the knowledge of things. The system of Locke 
is at this point involved in difBculties from which it can- 
not be delivered by those who hold, as he did, that man 
can reach a knowledge of objects. The only consistent 
issue of such a doctrine is an idealism which maintains 
that the mind can never get beyond its own circle or 
globe, and is there engaged forever in the contemplation 
and comparison of its own ideas, in regard to which it 
never can be certain whether they have any external 
reality corresponding to them. The doctrine of Hamil- 
ton and Mansel is not so objectionable, as they allow that 
we compare objects. Still it is an unsatisfactory state- 
ment to make all our knowledge to be not of things, but 
of the comparison or the relations of things. If I inter- 
pret my consciousness aright, we first know things, and 
then are able to compare them because of our knowledge 
of their qualities. Any other doctrine makes our knowl- 
edge indirect and remote, — we know not the object, but 
merely a relation of it to some other object, of which 
object our knowledge must also be relative, that is, in 
relation to something else. 

I acknowledge that every intuitive cognition may fur- 



184 PRIMITIVE JUDGMENTS. 

nish the matter and supply the ground for a judgment. 
Thus, out of the knowledge of a stone as before me, I 
can form the judgment, " This stone is now present," by 
an analysis of the concrete cognition. The knowledge 
of self as thinking enables me, as I distinguish between 
the ego and the particular thought, and observe the rela- 
tion of the two, to affirm, " I think." I believe that 
every primary cognition may entitle me, by an easy ab- 
straction and comparison, to frame a number of primary 
judgments. Thus the cognition of the stone enables me 
to say, " This stone exists ; " " This stone is here ; " and if 
the perception be by the eye, " This stone is extended ; " 
and if it be by the muscular sense, " This stone resists 
pressure ; " while the cognition of self, as perceiving the 
stone, enables me to affirm, " I perceive the stone ; " "I 
exist ; " "I perceive." The two indeed — our primary 
cognitions and beliefs on the one hand, and our primary 
judgments on the other — are intimately connected. 
Every cognition furnishes the materials of a judgment ; 
and a judgment possible, I do not say actual, is involved 
in every cognition. As the relation is implied in the 
nature of the individual objects, and the judgment pro- 
ceeds on the knowledge of the nature of the objects, so 
the two, in fact, may be all but simultaneous, and it may 
scarcely be necessary to distinguish them, except for 
rigidly exact philosophic purposes. Still it is the cogni- 
tion which comes first, and forms the basis on which the 
judgments are founded ; in the case of the primitive 
judgments, directly founded. It should be frankly ad- 
mitted that what is given in primary cognition is in itself 
of the vaguest and most valueless character, till abstrac- 
tion and comparison are brought to bear upon it. Still 
our cognitions and beliefs furnish the materials of all 
that the discursive understanding weaves into such rich 
and often complicated webs of comparison and inference. 



THEIR GENERAL NATURE. 185 



III. 

It is to be carefully observed that our primitive cogni- 
tions and beliefs being of Realities, all the intellectual 
processes properly founded on them must relate to reali- 
ties also. If what we proceed on be unreal, that which 
we reach by a logical process may also be unreal. If 
space and time, for example, have, as some suppose, no 
reality independent of the contemplative mind, then all 
the relations of space and time, as unfolded in mathe- 
matical demonstrations, must also be regarded as unreal 
in the same sense. On the other hand, if space and 
time have (as I maintain) an existence irrespective of 
the mind thinking about them, then all the necessary 
relations drawn from our knowledge may also be regarded 
as having a reality independent of the mind reflecting on 
them. Not that they are to be supposed to have an ex- 
istence as individuals, or independent of the things re- 
lated ; they have precisely such a reality as we are intui- 
tively led to believe them to have ; that is, they exist as 
necessary relations of the separate things. 

IV. 

It may be as well to announce here generally, what 
will be shown specially at every stage as we advance, 
that all the primitive judgments of the mind are Indi- 
vidual. The mind does not in its spontaneous operations 
declare that it is impossible for the same thing to be and 
not to be, but upon being satisfied that a certain thing 
exists, it at once sets aside the thought or assertion that 
it does not exist. It does not affirm in a general propo- 
sition that no two straight lines can enclose a space, but 
it says these two straight lines cannot enclose a space ; 
and it would say the same of every other two straight 



186 PRIMITIVE JUDGMENTS. 

lines. It does not metaphysically announce that every 
quality implies a substance, that every effect must have 
a cause ; but it declares of this property contemplated 
that it implies a substance, and of this given effect that 
it must have had a cause. It is out of these individual 
judgments that the general maxim is obtained by a pro- 
cess of generalization. But then it is to be observed that 
it is not a generalization of an outward experience, — 
which must always be limited, and never can furnish 
ground for a necessary and universal proposition, — but 
of inward and immediate judgments of the mind, which 
carry in them the conviction of necessity, which necessity 
therefore will attach itself to the general maxim, on the 
condition of our having properly performed the discur- 
sive operation. 



It is necessary for our purposes to Classify the primary 
judgments pronounced by the mind ; but this is by no 
means an easy task. An arrangement may, however, 
serve very important ends, even though it be not thor- 
oughly exhaustive and altogether unobjectionable. The 
following is to be regarded simply as the best which I 
have been able to draw out, and may be accepted as a 
provisional one till a better be furnished. The mind 
seems capable of noticing intuitively the relations of, — 

I. IDENTITY AND DIFFERENCE. V. TIME. 

II. WHOLE AND PARTS. VI. QUANTITY. 

III. RESEMBLANCE. VII. ACTIVE PROPERTY. 

IV. SPACE, VIII. CAUSE AND EFFECT. 

VI. 

It is said to be the office of judgment or comparison 
to discover Relations. Let us properly understand what 
is meant by relations. It always implies two or more i 



THEIR GENERAL NATURE. 187 

things. The relation depends on the nature of the 
things. We must know so far the nature of the things 
before we can discover their relation. In Identity we 
know the object as at one time and again at another 
time, and looking at each of the things, and comparing 
them, we discover them to be the same. In Comprehen- 
sion we have before the mind an object, and also a part 
or parts, say a house and a window, and we decide the 
window to be part of the house. In Resemblance we 
perceive a quality in each of the objects, and pronounce 
it the same. It should be noticed here that while the 
quality is the same, this does not make the objects iden- 
tical. In Space we discover relations of extension and 
position, say of the angles of a triangle to one another. 
In Time we have always a present perception, and we 
remember the past or anticipate the future, and declare 
their relations of priority and posteriority. In Quantity 
we look at the muchness of objects, as being less or more, 
and at their proportions. In Quality we contemplate 
objects as affecting each other, say as attracting one an- 
other. In Causation we discover a power in one object 
to affect another. 

A judgment is usually defined as a comparison of two notions. 
Upon which Mr. J. S. Mill remarks, that "propositions (except 
where the mind itself is the subject treated of) are not assertions 
respecting our ideas of things, but assertions respecting things them- 
selves," adding, "My belief has not reference to the ideas, it has 
reference to the things " (Logic, i. v. 1). There is force in the 
criticism, yet it does not give the exact truth. In propositions about 
extra-mental objects, we are not comparing the two notions as states 
of mind ; so far as logicians have proceeded on this view, they have 
fallen into confusion and error. But still, while it is true that our 
predications are made, not in regard to our notions, but of things, it 
is in regard to things apprehended, or of which we have a notion, as 
Mr. Mill admits: "In order to believe that gold is yellow, I must 
indeed have the idea of gold and the idea of yellow, and something 
having reference to those ideas must take place in my mind." 



188 PRIMITIVE JUDGMENTS. 

According to Locke, " Perception is the first operation of all our 
intellectual faculties, and the inlet of all knowledge into our minds " 
(Essay, II. X. 15). According to the view I take, perception is 
knowledge. According to Locke, " Knowledge is nothing but the 
Perception of the Connection and Agreement, or Disagreement and 
Repugnancy, of any of our ideas " (iv. i. 1). See King's and Reid's 
review of this doctrine of Locke, supra, p. 45. Hamilton says : 
" Consciousness is primarily a judgment or affirmation of existence. 
Again, consciousness is not merely the affirmation of naked exist- 
ence, but the affirmation of a certain qualified or determinate ex- 
istence " (Metaph. Lect. 24. See, also, Notes to Reid's Works, pp. 243, 
275). Dr? Mansel says : " It may be laid down as a general canon 
of Psychology, that every act of consciousness, intuitive or discur- 
sive, is comprised in a conviction of the presence of its object, either 
internally in the mind, or externally in space. The result of every 
such act may thus be generally stated in the proposition, ' This is 
here.' " He is obliged to distinguish between such a psychological 
judgment and a logical one. "The former is the judgment of a 
relation between the conscious subject and the immediate object of 
consciousness. The latter is the judgment of a relation which two 
objects of thought bear to each other" (Proleg. Log. Chap. ii.). 
What he calls a psychological judgment seems to me to be a cog- 
nition, which may be explicated into a judgment, which judgment 
will be a logical one. Hamilton and Mansel carry out still further 
their doctrine of comparison being involved in knowledge. Dr. 
Mansel quotes J. G. Fichte : " AUes, was fur uns Etwas ist, ist es 
nur inwiefern es Etwas anderes auch nicht ist ; alle Position ist nur 
moglich durch Negation." This doctrine is in perfect consonance 
with Fichte' s idealism, but does not consort so well with Scottish 
realism. And yet Hamilton says: "The knowledge of opposites is 
one; thus we cannot know what is tall without knowing what is 
short ; we know what is virtue only as we know what is vice ; the 
science of health is but another name for the science of disease " 
{Metaph. Lect. 13; see, also, 34). So, also. Dr. Mansel (Lim. o/Relig. 
Thought, Lect. 3), " To be conscious, we must be conscious of some- 
thing; and that something can only be known as that which it is, by 
being distinguished from that which it is not." This seems to me a 
doctrine wrong in itself, and of very doubtful tendency. True, there 
are some ideas confessedly relative, such as the ideas of tall and 
short. But, on the other hand, there are cognitions, and there are 
ideas which are positive; thus we know self as thinking, we know 



THEIR GENERAL NATURE. 189 

virtue as good, without reference to anything else, and it is because 
we are thus able to know things separately that we are able to dis- 
cover relations between them. We do not first discern diSerences 
and then know the things: we first know the things and then observe 
points of resemblance or difference. 

Both Locke and Kant give the mind a power of intuition, but they 
bring it in at different places. Locke confines it to our judgments ; 
we perceive intuitively the relation of ideas (Essay, B iv. 1). Kant 
gives the mind an intuition of phenomena under forms which it im- 
poses, but withholds from the mind any intuition in judgment or 
understanding. I give the mind, within rigid limits, an intuition both, 
of things and the relations of things. 

Locke speaks of relations as being infinite, and mentions only a 
few. He specifies Cause and Effect, Time, Place, Identity and 
Diversity, Proportion, and Moral Relations (^Essay, ii. xxviii.). 
Hume mentions Resemblance, Identity, Space and Time, Quantity, 
Degi'ee, Contrariety, Cause and Effect. Kant's Categories are, — 
(I.) Quantity, containing Unity, Plurality, Totality ; (II.) Quality, 
containing Reality, Negation, Limitation ; (III-) Relation, compris- 
ing Inherence and Subsistence, Causality and Dependence, Com- 
munity of Agent and Patient ; (IV.) Modality, under which are 
Possibility and Impossibility, Existence and Non-Existence, Neces- 
sity and Contingence. Dr. Brown arranges them as those of, — (I.) 
Coexistence, embracing Position, Resemblance or Difference, Pro- 
portion, Degree, Comprehension ; (H-) Succession, containing 
Causal and Casual Priority. Of late there has been a tendency 
among British psychologists to narrow the relations which the mind 
can discover. Sir W. Hamilton's account (Metaph. Lect. 34) is a 
retrogression in science. In comparison, — (1.) We affirm the ex- 
istence of the ego and the non-ego ; (2.) We discriminate the two ; 
(3.) We notice resemblance or dissimilarity ; (4.) We collate the 
phenomena with the native notion of substance ; (5.) We collate 
them with the native notion of causation. Prof. Bain says (Senses 
and Intell. p. 329), "What is termed judgment may consist in dis- 
crimination on the one hand, or in the sense of agreement on the 
other : we determine two or more things either to differ or to agree. 
It is impossible to find any case of judging that does not, in the last 
resort, mean one or other of these two essential activities of the in- 
tellect." I wish my readers to compare these views of Hamilton 
and Bain with those of the older thinkers quoted above, and with 
those expounded in this work. Both seem to me to narrow the 



190 PRIMITIVE JUDGMENTS. 

mind's power of discovering relations among things, which in fact 
is the highest intellectual power which the mind can exercise. 
Hamilton's account seems to me to be an unnatural one, especially 
what he says about a collation with " native notions " of substance 
and causation. We discover the relations in looking at things. 
Bain's account in confining the mind's power to the discovery of 
agreement and difference is miserably meagre. 



CHAPTER II. 

RELATIONS INTUITIVELY OBSERVED BY THE MIND. 

I. 

Relation of Identity. — We have seen that every ob- 
ject known by us is known as having being ; I do not 
say an independent being, but a separate and individual 
being. This being, continuing in the object, constitutes 
its identity. This identity every object has as long as 
it exists, and this whether the identity does or does not 
become known to us or to any other created being. An 
object has identity not because the identity is known to 
us ; but an object having continued being, and therefore 
identit}^, intelligent beings may come to discover it. We 
are so constituted as to be able to know being, — that is, 
that the object known to us possesses being, — and we 
look on the object as retaining that being as long as it 
exists. We are prepared to decide then that if we ever 
fall in with this object again, it will have retained its 
identity. We may fall in with the same object again 
without discovering it to be the same, because of a defect 
of memory, or because the object was disguised in a 
crowd. But in regard to certain objects, we cannot 
avoid observing the sameness, and cannot be deceived in 
pronouncing them the same. 

So far as self is concerned, we discover the identity 
intuitively as we look on the objects presented in self- 
consciousness and memory. We have an immediate 
knowledge of self in every exercise of consciousness. 
We have a recollection of self in some particular state 



192 PRIMITIVE JUDGMENTS. 

in GTery exercise of memory. The mind has thus before 
it, at every waking moment, a knowledge of a present 
self ; and in every exercise of memory it has a past self ; 
and in looking at and comparing the two, it at once pro- 
claims the identity. It will be observed that here, as in 
every other case, the judgment throws us back on cog- 
nition, specially personality, and belief; the necessary 
facts on which the mind pronounces the necessary judg- 
ment are furnished in the exercise of consciousness and 
memory. 

In regard to objects external to the mind, we have no 
such intuitive means of discovering an identity. Our 
original perceptions do not extend even to the identity 
of our bodily frame. Every particle of matter in the 
body may be changed in seven years, as physiologists 
tell us, in perfect accordance with our intuitive percep- 
tions. We may be without a body in the state between 
death and the resurrection, and may receive an entirely 
new and spiritual body in heaven, and yet retain all the 
while our identity and feeling of identity. And in the 
case of extra-organic objects there is always a possibility 
of doubt as to whether what we perceive now is the same 
object as fell under our notice at some previous time. 
The infant, prompted by his instinct as to the continu- 
uance of being, and making a wrong application of it, 
will often be inclined to discover identity where there 
is only resemblance, will be apt, for example, to look on 
every man he meets with as his father. As he advances 
in life he will be led to pay more regard to differences. 
As to when tbere is a sufficient amount of resemblance 
to denote a sameness, this is to be determined solely by 
the laws of experiential evidence. In some cases, as 
when we recognize our friends and familiar objects, there 
is moral certainty ; in other cases there is probability, less 



RELATIONS INTUITIVELY OBSERVED BY THE MIND. 193 

or greater, according to the proof which is perceived or 
can be adduced (a). 

The intuitive judgments are always individual, and 
are pronounced on the objects being presented. When 
generalized, they take the form of such metaphysical 
maxims as these : " It is impossible for the same thing 
to be and not to be at the same time." " Everything 
preserves its identity as long as it exists." " We are 
sure that we are the same beings as we were since con- 
sciousness began, and must continue the same as long as 
consciousness exists." 

The above are judgments pronounced on individual 
objects contemplated. Under the same head there fall 
to be placed predications which the mind makes at once 
and intuitively in regard to relations which have been 
previously perceived and sanctioned by the mind. Sup- 
pose that, on the ground of experience, we become con- 
vinced that no reptile is warm-blooded ; on the bare 
contemplation of the notions, we at once and intuitively 
declare that no warm-blooded animal can be a reptile. 
In all such cases it is presupposed that there is a pre- 
viously discovered relation. It is possible that the mind 
may have been deceived, and that the relation does not 
really exist ; and in this case the judgment pronounced 
according to the law of identity would also be wrong as 
a matter of fact. Thus if a proposition were given that 
"no mammal is warm-blooded," the mind would pro- 
nounce that no " warm-blooded animal can be a mam- 
mal." The error, however, would lie, not in the law of 
thought, but in the original proposition furnished. 

This is the proper place to explain the famous distinc- 
tion drawn by Kant between Analytic and Synthetic 
Judgments. Analytic Judgments are those in which the 
predicate is involved in the very notion which constitutes 



194 PRIMITIVE JUDGMENTS. 

the subject; as when we say that "an island is sur- 
rounded with water," " a king has authority to rule," 
"the moral law should be obeyed." All such judgments 
are said, in the nomenclature of the Kantian school, to be 
a priori. We have come to entertain certain apprehen- 
sions in regard to island, king, and moral law, and now 
we pronounce a set of judgments on the bare contempla- 
tion of these, and involved in them by the law of iden- 
tity. The judgments involved in the general law of 
identity, the analytic judgments of Kant, have been care- 
fully examined of late years in Germany. They take 
the following forms : I. The Law of Identity Proper, 
which requires us to recognize the same to be the same, 
presented it may be at different times, or in different 
circumstances, or in different forms. II. The Law of 
Contradiction, according to which it is impossible for 
the same thing to be and not to be at the same time ; 
this whatever the thing be, an independently existing 
object, or an attribute. III. The Law of Excluded 
Middle, which requires that when two propositions are 
in the relation of contradictories, one or other must be 
true, and yet both cannot be true. These Laws have a 
great importance in Formal Logic. Being carried out 
and applied in special forms, they show what may be 
drawn from any proposition or set of propositions given, 
and they keep thought consistent with itself. (5) 

Synthetic (as distinguished from Analytic) Judgments 
are those in which the predicate afl&rms or denies some- 
thing more than is embraced in the concept ; as when we 
say " gold is yellow," " body gravitates," " sin will be 
punished." Most of these judgments are said to be a 
posteriori, that is, they are the result of gathered obser- 
vation. Others of them are called a priori, being prior 
to observation. But the account given by Kant cannot 



RELATIONS INTUITIVELY OBSERVED BY THE MIND. 196 

be accepted by me, as it is not consistent with realism. 
He makes the judgments formed by the mind by its own 
independent power, according to its own laws and im- 
posed on things. I hold that we pronounce them as we 
look at things. This makes them relate to things. 
There are cases innumerable in which we form judg- 
ments on the bare inspection of things, without any 
gathered observation. We perceive the relation at once, 
and the judgment is necessary and universal. Thus we 
perceive that things which are equal to the same thing 
are equal to one another, and that what begins to be 
must have a cause. Such relations can be observed, gen- 
eralized, and expressed. They may be called a priori 
judgments, but I think more appropriately primitive 
judgments. I am in this Book to unfold these Judg- 
ments. 

(a) These views determine the light in which we should look on 
as * ' pretty ' ' a controversy as ever raged in metaphysics or out of it, 
as to whether two things in every respect alike — say two drops of 
water — would or would not be identical. Leibnitz held that each 
thing differed from every other by an internal principle of distinc- 
tion, and that no individuals could be alike in every respect, and 
that if they were, they could have no principle of individuation (_0p. 
p. 277). Kant criticised this view, and urged that even though they 
were in every respect alike, they would differ as being in different 
parts of space (Werke, Bd. ii. p. 217). The common representation 
was that they would differ numerically. I am not sure that any of 
these accounts is correct. It is quite conceivable that there might 
be two things in every respect alike, except in their individual being. 
It is not their existence in different parts of space which constitutes 
their difference, but as different in their being, they exist in different 
parts of space. They have a distinct being, not because they are 
numerically different, but they are numerically distinct because they 
have a distinct being. 

(b) I have shown in my work on Logic, at the close, how these 
Analytic Judgments regulate discursive thought. Identity Proper 
rules affirmative inferences immediate and mediate. Contradiction 



196 PRIMITIVE JUDGMENTS. 

controls negative inferences. Excluded Middle guides in our infer- 
ences from contradictories. 

II. 

Relations of WJiole and Paris. — It is a fundamental 
principle of this treatise that the mind begins with the 
concrete, — a truth which should always go along with 
the other, which has, however, been more frequently- 
noticed, that it begins with the individual. Being fur- 
nished with the concrete in its primary knowledge and 
beliefs, — and we may add, imaginations, — the mind 
can consider a part of the concrete whole separate from 
the other parts. In doing so, it is much aided by the 
circumstance that the concrete whole seldom comes 
round in all its entireness. The child sees a man with 
a hat to-day and without his hat to-morrow, and is thus 
the better enabled to form a notion of the hat apart from 
the man that wore it. 

In all abstraction there is judgment or comparison ; 
that is, we discover a relation between two objects con- 
templated. We contemplate a concrete whole, and we 
contemplate a part, and observe a relation of the part 
as a part to the whole. It should be admitted that, 
without any exercise of comparison, we are capable of 
imaging a part of a whole, in cases where the part can 
be separated ; thus, having seen a man on horseback, I 
can easily picture to myself the man separately, or the 
horse separately, without thinking of any relation be- 
tween them ; but in such processes there is no exercise 
of abstraction. Abstraction is eminently an intellectual 
operation. In it we contemplate a part as part of a 
whole, say a quality as a quality of a substance ; for ex- 
ample, transparency as a quality of ice, or of some 
other substance. In all such exercises there is involved 
a Correlative Powei:. This power may be called Com- 



RELATIONS INTUITIVELY OBSERVED BY THE MIND. 197 

prehension, inasmuch as it contemplates the whole in its 
relation to the parts; or Abstraction, inasmuch as it 
contemplates the part as part of a whole; and the Fac- 
ulty of Analysis and Synthesis, inasmuch as it resolves 
the whole into its parts, and shows that the parts make 
up the whole. There is, if I do not mistake, intuition 
involved in every exercise of this power. The opera- 
tions of the intuition are always singular, but they may 
be generalized, and being so, they will give us the fol- 
lowing as involved in Abstraction : — 

1. The Abstract implies the Concrete. This arises 
from the very nature of abstraction. When an object 
is befoi'e it in the concrete, the mind can separate a qual- 
ity from the object, and one quality from another. It 
can distinguish, for example, between a man taken as 
a whole, and any one quality of his, such as bodily 
strength ; and distinguish between any one quality and 
another, as between his bodily strength and intellectual 
power, between his intellectual faculties and his feelings, 
and between any one feeling, such as joy, and any other 
feeling, such as sorrow. But we are not to suppose that, 
while we can thus distinguish between a whole and its 
parts, between an object and its qualities, between one 
quality and another, therefore the part can exist inde- 
pendent of the whole, or the quality of its object. Every 
abstracted quality implies some concrete object from 
which it has been separated in thought. 

2. When the Concrete is Meal, the Abstract is also 
Real. In this respect there is a truth in the now ex- 
ploded doctrine of realism. Abstraction, if it proceeds 
on a reality and is properly conducted, ever conducts to 
realities. It is thus a most important intellectual exer- 
cise for the discovery of truth, enabling us to discover 
the permanent amidst the fleeting, the real amidst the 



198 PRIMITIVE JUDGMENTS. 

phenomenal. As I look on a piece of magnetized iron, 
I know it to be a real existence, and I think of it as 
having a certain form, and of its attracting certain ob- 
jects, and I must believe that this figure is a reality quite 
as much as the iron which has the form, and that the 
attractive power is not a mere fiction, any more than the 
iron of which it is a property. But it is to be carefully 
observed that this abstract thing, while it has an exist- 
ence, has not necessarily an independent existence. 
We have already seen that when it is a quality it must 
always be the quality of a substance. Beauty is cer- 
tainly reality, but it has no existence apart from a beau- 
tiful person or scene, of whom or of which it has an 
attribute. 

A philosopher, says Kant, was asked. What is the weight 
of smoke ? and he answered, Subtract the weight of the 
ashes from the weight of the fuel burned, and we have 
the weight of smoke. At the basis of his judgment is 
the intuitive maxim that the whole is equal to the sum 
of its parts. The individual intuitive judgments which 
the mind pronounces on looking at whole and parts may 
perhaps be all generalized into two principles : (1.) The 
parts make up the whole. (2.) The whole is equal to the 
sum of its parts. From the first of these we may derive 
the rules, that the abstract part is involved in the con- 
crete whole, ?ind that the abstract, as part of a real con- 
crete thing, is also a real. From the first we have the 
rule that each part is less than the whole ; and from the 
second the maxim that the whole is greater than the 
parts. It is of importance to have such maxims as these 
accurately enunciated in mathematical demonstration 
and logical and metaphysical science. Spontaneously, 
however, the mind does not form any such general axi- 
oms, which are merely the generalized expression of its 
individual judgments. 



RELATIONS INTUITIVELY OBSERVED BY THE MIND. 199 

Still, the maxim is underlying many of our thoughts 
in all departments of investigation. Thus in Natural 
History it urges us to seek for a classification in which 
all the members of any subdivision will make up the 
whole. It impels the chemist to look out for all the ele- 
ments which go to constitute the compound substance. 
In psychology and metaphysics it prompts us to analyze 
a concrete mental state into parts, and insists that in the 
synthesis the parts be equal to the whole. In logic it 
demands, as a rule of division, that the members make 
up the class, and is involved in all those processes in 
which we infer (in subalternation) that what is true of 
all must be true of some ; or (in disjunctive division) 
that what is true of one of two alternatives (A and B), 
and is not true of one (A), must be true of the other 
(B). In most of such cases the more prominent ele- 
ments are got from experience ; in some of them, other 
intuitions act the more important part ; but in all of 
them there are intuitions of whole and parts underly- 
ing the mental processes, — unconsciously and covertly, 
no doubt, but still capable of being brought out to view 
for scientific purposes. 

m. 

The Relations of Resemblance. — It has been generally 
acknowledged that man's primary knowledge is of indi- 
vidual objects : not that he as yet knows them to be in- 
dividual ; it is only after he has been able to form gen- 
eral notions that he draws the distinction, and finds that 
what he first knew was singular. What is meant is, that 
the boy does not begin with a notion of man or woman, 
or humanity in general, but with a knowledge of a par- 
ticular man, say his father, or a particular woman, say 
his mother ; and it is only as other men and other 



200 PRIMITIVE JUDGMENTS. 

women come under his notice, and he observes their 
points of agreement, that he is able to rise to the general 
notion of man, or woman, or humankind. 

In the mental processes involved in generalization, the 
most important part is the observational one. When we 
discover, for example, the resemblance of plants, and 
proceed to group them into species, genera, and orders, 
the operation is one of induction and comparison. There 
is no necessity of thought involved in the law that roses 
have five petals, or that fishes are cold-blooded, or indeed 
in any of the laws of natural history. Still there are 
laws of thought which have a place in the generalizing 
process. 

1. The universal implies singulars. — The mind pro- 
nounces this judgment when it looks at the nature of the 
individuals and the generals. The universal is not some- 
thing independent of the singulars, prior to the singulars, 
or above the singulars. A general notion is the notion 
of an indefinite number of objects possessing a common 
attribute or attributes, and includes all the objects pos- 
sessing the common quality or qualities. It is clear, 
thei-efore, that the general proceeds on and presupposes 
individuals. If there were no individuals, there would 
be no general ; and if the individuals were to cease, the 
general would likewise cease. If there were no individual 
roses, there would be no such thing as a class of plants 
called roses. 

2. When the singulars are real., the universal is also 
real; always, of course, on the supposition that the 
generalization has been properly made. There exists, 
we shall suppose, in natui-e, a number of objects possess- 
ing common attributes; we have observed their points of 
resemblance, and put them in a class : has, or has not, 
the class an existence ? In reply, I say that the genus 



\ 



RELATIONS INTUITIVELY OBSERVED BY THE MIND. 201 

has an existence and a reality as well as the individual 
objects. An indefinite number of animals chew the 
cud, and are called ruminant ; the class ruminant has an 
existence quite as much as the individual animals. But 
let us observe what sort of reality the class has ; it is a 
reality merely in the individuals, and in the possession 
of common qualities by these individuals. 

3. Whatever is predicated of a class may he predicated 
of all the members of the class; and vice versd, whatever is 
predicated of all the members of a class may be predicated 
of the class. This is a self-evident and necessary propo- 
sition. It is pronounced by the mind in an individual 
form whenever it contemplates the relation of a class and 
the members of the class ; thus, if the general maxim be 
discovered or allowed, that all reptiles are cold-blooded, 
and the further fact be given or ascertained that the 
crocodile is a reptile, the conclusion is pronounced that 
the crocodile is cold-blooded. 

The laws mentioned in this section play an important 
part in Logic, and have a place in the Notion, in the 
Judgment, and in Reasoning. 

IV. 

delations of Space. — I have endeavored to show that 
the mind in sense-perception has a knowledge of objects 
as occupying space, and that round these original cogni- 
tions there gather certain native beliefs. Upon the con- 
templation of the objects thus apprehended, the mind is 
led at once and necessarily to pronounce certain judg- 
ments. They may be arranged as follows : — 

1. There are all the mathematical axioms which relate 
to limited extension, such as, "The shortest distance 
between any two points is a straight line ; " " Two 
straight lines cannot enclose a space ; " " Two straight 



202 PRIMITIVE JUDGilENTS. 

lines which when produced the shortest possible distance 
are not nearer each other, will not, if produced ever so 
far, approach nearer each other ; " "All right angles are 
equal to one another." Under the same head are to be 
placed the postulates involved in the definitions and in 
the propositions founded on them, such as the following, 
put in the form of maxims: "A straight line may be 
drawn from any one point to any other point ; " "A 
straight line may be produced to any length in a straight 
line ; " " There may be such a figure as a circle, that is, 
a plane figure such that all straight lines drawn from a 
certain point within the figure are equal to one another ; " 
and that " A circle may be described from any centre at 
any distance from that centre." I shall have occasion, in 
speaking of the application of the principles laid down 
in this treatise to mathematics, to return to axioms, and 
shall then show that the intuitive judgments pronounced 
by the mind in regard to the relations of space are all 
individual, and that the form assumed by them in the 
axioms of geometry is the result of the generalization, 
not indeed of an outward experience, but of the individual 
decisions of the mind, 

2. There are certain axioms in regard to motion, such 
as that '* All motion is in space ; " " All motion is from 
one part of space to another ; " " All motion is by an 
object in space ; " "A body in passing from one part of 
space to another must pass through the whole interme- 
diate space." 

3. There are the primitive truths which arise from the 
relation of objects to space, such as " Body occupies 
space ; " " Body is contained in space ; " " Body occupies 
a certain portion of space ; " and thus " Body has a de- 
fined figure." But what, it may be asked, do our intui- 
tive convictions say as to the relation of mind and space ? 



I 



RELATIONS INTUITIVELY OBSERVED BY THE MIND. 203 

I am inclined to think that our intuition declares of 
spirit, that it must be in space. It is clear, too, that so 
far as mind acts on body, it must act on body as in space, 
say in making that body move in space. But beyond 
this, I am persuaded that we have no means of knowing 
the relation which mind and space bear to each other. 
As to whether spirit does or does not occupy space, this 
is a subject on which intuition seems to say nothing, and 
I suspect that experience says as little. 

4. There are certain metaphysical judgments as to 
space, such as " Space is continuous ; " " Space cannot 
be divided in the sense of its parts being separated ; " 
and all those derived from the infinity of space, such as 
that " Space has no limits ; " " Any line may be infinitely 
prolonged in space." 



The Relations of Time. — The apprehension of time is 
given in every exercise of memory ; we remember the 
event as having happened in time past. Round this 
primary conviction there collect a number of beliefs. 
When time thus apprehended is contemplated by us, we 
are led, from the very nature of the object, to make cer- 
tain affirmations and denials. It declares that " Time is 
continuous ; " that " Time cannot be divided into sepa- 
rable parts ; " and that " Time has no limits." The mind 
also declares that " Every event happens in time." 

VI. 

The Relations of Quantity. — These are equivalent to 
the relations of proportion referred to by Locke, and the 
relations of proportion and degree mentioned by Brown ; 
they are the relations of less and more. The mind, in 
discovering them, proceeds upon the knowledge pre- 



204 PRIMITIVE JUDGMENTS. 

viously acquired of objects as being singulars, that is, 
units ; it is upon a succession of units coming before it 
that the judgment is pronounced. It also very frequently 
proceeds on other relations which have been previously 
discovered ; on perceiving, for instance, that objects re- 
semble each other in respect of space, time, and property, 
we may notice that they have less or more of the com- 
mon thing in respect of which they agree. 

It is to this intuition I refer the power which the mind 
has of discovering the relation of simple numbers. I be- 
lieve that one, or unity, is involved in our primary cog- 
nition of objects. Not that I think it necessary to call 
in a special intuition in order to our being able to count 
or number ; but I believe that, besides the exercise of 
memory, and the discovery of the relations of the succes- 
sion in time, there must be the general power of dis- 
covering the relations of quantity : we must be able, not 
only to go over the units, but further, to discover the re- 
lations of the units and of their combinations. 

To this faculty I refer all those operations in which 
we discover equality, or difference, or proportions of any 
kind, in numbers. The mental capacity is greatly aided, 
and its intuitive perceptions are put in a position to act 
more readily and extensively, through the divisions and 
notations by tens in our modern arithmetic ; every ten, 
every hundred, every thousand, and so on, comes to be 
regarded as a unit, and the judgments in regard to units 
are made to reach numbers indefinitely large. These 
numerical judgments admit of an application to exten- 
sion in space. Fixing on a certain length, superficies or 
solid, as a unit, we form judgments which embrace lines 
or surfaces or solids never actually measured. I am per- 
suaded that, even in its common or practical operations, 
— as, for example, in the measurement of distance by 



RELATIONS INTUITIVELY OBSERVED BY THE MIND. 205 

the eye, — the mind fixes on some known and familiar 
length as its standard, and estimates larger space by this. 
Ever since Descartes conceived the method of expressing 
curve lines and surfaces by means of equations, mathe- 
matics may be said to be concerned with quantity as 
their summum genus. The judgments as intuitive are 
all individual, but they can be generalized, when they 
will assume such forms as the " Common Notions," so 
far as they relate to quantity, prefixed by Euclid to his 
Elements. " Things which are equal to the same thing 
are equal to one another ; " "If equals be added to 
equals, the wholes are equal ; " " If equals be taken from 
equals, the remaindei's ai'e equal ; " " If equals be added 
to unequals, the wholes are unequal ; " " If equals be 
taken from unequals, the remainders are unequal ; " 
" Things which are double the same thing are equal to 
one another ; " " Things which are half the same thing 
are equal to one another." 

VII. 

Relations of Active Property. — I have been striving 
to prove that we cannot know either self or body acting 
on self, except as possessing property. On looking at 
the properties of objects, the mind at once pronounces 
certain decisions. These, like all our other intuitive 
judgments, have a reference, in the first instance, to the 
individual case presented, but may be made universal by 
a process of generalization. Thus, the mind declares, 
" This property implies a substance ; " " This substance 
will exercise a property." The abstract truths will 
seldom be formally enunciated, but, as regulative prin- 
ciples, they underlie our common thoughts, and we pro- 
ceed on them, even when entirely unaware of their 
nature or of their existence. Every action or manifes- 



206 PRIMITIVE JUDGMENTS. 

tation we intuitively regard as the action or exhibition 
of a something having a substantial being. On falling 
in with a new substance, say an aerolite just dropped 
from the heavens, we know not indeed what its proper- 
ties are, but we are sure that it has properties, and we 
make an attempt to discover them. 



i 



CHAPTER III. 

RELATION OF CAUSE AND EFFECT. 

Causation has been involved in a denser dust of dis- 
cussion, especially" since the days of Hume, than any 
other subject, except Free Will, which is intimately con- 
nected with cause and effect. There is no agreement 
among psychologists as to the internal conviction, nor 
among physicists as to the external relation. I must 
content myself with enunciating a few principles which 
are defensible and consistent with the latest discoveries 
of science. 



We have a primitive Cognition of Power. I have 
labored in vain if I have not shown that in all our cog- 
nition by the senses of taste, smell, hearing, and seeing, 
and especially by the muscular touch, we know objects as 
affecting us. We have a special knowledge of power in 
volition : we will to move our arm or to stay a thought, 
and the effect follows. I am to show that upon this 
primitive knowledge of potency our judgment as to cause 
and effect proceeds. 

IL 

Objects, Material and Mental, Act on Each Other. — 
There is a sense in which body is passive. An atom, if 
isolated from all other bodies, will continue in the state 
in which it is. But if brought into relationship with 
another body, the one body acts on the other, or rather 
the bodies mutually affect each other, mechanically or 



208 PRIMITIVE JUDGMENTS. 

chemically. Thus viewed, matter is active. The two 
bodies acting on each other constitute the cause ; the 
change produced constitutes the effect. " The statement 
of the cause is incomplete," says J. S. Mill, "unless in 
some shape or other we introduce all the conditions. A 
man takes mercury, goes out of doors, and catches cold. 
We say perhaps that the cause of his taking cold was 
the exposure to the air. It is clear, however, that his 
having taken mercury may have been a necessary condi- 
tion of his catching cold; and though it might consist 
with usage to say that the cause of his attack was expo- 
sure to air, to be accurate we ought to say that the cause 
was exposure to the air while under the effect of mer- 
cury." More accurately, the true cause of the effect, 
the cold, was not the air alone, or the body alone, but 
the air and the body under mercury. 

There is a like joint action, a concause, in psychical 
or mental action. I will to move my arm and the arm 
moves ; in the cause there is the will, but there are con- 
current physiological processes without which no effect 
would follow. I will to detain a pleasant thought : there 
is a volition, but there is also the thought which is de- 
tained. 

III. 
There is Power in the Cause or Concause to produce 
the effect. We have seen that we know substances, 
mind and body, as having power. In causation the 
power is acting. The substances act according to their 
properties, that is, powers. A change is produced upon 
the substances, and this is the effect. The body A strikes 
the body B : this is the cause. The effect is that both A 
and B are affected : B is moved, and A is stayed in its 
motion. There has been power both in A and B, and 



RELATION OF CAUSE AND EFFECT. 209 

the power in the two is the same before and after the 
collision. We see the error of Hume, who makes causa- 
tion mere invariable antecedence and consequence ; and 
of J. S. Mill, who makes it unconditional sequence., It is 
not the invariable or unconditional succession which con- 
stitutes causation, but it is the power in the cause which 
produces the invariable succession. 

IV. 

Every effect, that is, every thing Beginning To Be, 
has a cause. This conviction is not the result of a wide 
generalization of instances. The causal belief is as strong 
in infancy as in mature life. It is as strong among sav- 
ages as in civilized countries. It is entertained by men 
brought up in very different countries and situations, 
attached to different sects and creeds. But the circum- 
stance which proves it to be intuitive is, that the convic- 
tion is necessary. No possible length or uniformity could 
or should give this necessity of conviction to the judg- 
ment. We might have seen A and B, this stone and 
that stone, this star and that star, this man and that 
man, together, a thousand, or a million, or a billion of 
times, and without our ever having seen them separate ; 
but this would not and ought not to necessitate us to 
believe that they have been forever together, and shall 
be forever together, and must be forever together. No 
doubt it would lead us, when we fell in with the one, to 
look for the other, and we would wonder if the one pre- 
sented itself without the other ; still it is possible for us 
to conceive, and, on evidence being produced, to believe, 
that there may be the one without the other. It was 
long supposed that all metals are comparatively heavy, 
but while every one was astonished at the fact, no one 
prepared to deny it, when it was shown by Davy that 



210 PRIMITIVE JUDGMENTS. 

potassium floated on water. A very wide and uniform 
experience would justify a general expectation, but not 
a necessary conviction; and this experience is liable to 
be disturbed at any time by a new occurrence inconsis- 
tent with what has been previously known to us. But 
the belief in the connection between cause and effect is 
of a totally different character. We can believe that 
two things which have been united since creation began, 
may never be united again while creation lasts ; but we 
never can be made to believe, or rather think, judge, 
or decide (for these are the right expressions), that a 
change can take place without a cause. We can believe 
that night and day might henceforth be disconnected, 
and that from and after this day or some other day there 
would only be perpetual day or perpetual night on the 
earth ; but we could never be made to decide that, the 
causes which produced day and night being the same, 
there ever could be any other effect than day or night. 
We could believe, on sufficient evidence, that the sun 
might not rise on our earth to-morrow, but we never 
could be made to judge that, the sun and earth and all 
other things necessary to the sun rising on our earth 
abiding as they are, the luminary of day should not run 
his round as usual. We see at once that there is a 
difference between the judgment of the mind in the two 
cases : in the case in which we have before us a mere 
conjunction sanctioned by a wide and invariable induc- 
tion, and that in which we have an effect and connect 
it with its cause. The one belief can be overcome, and 
should be overcome, at any time by a new and inconsis- 
tent fact coming under our observation ; whereas, in re- 
gard to the other, we are confident that it never can be 
modified or set aside, and we feel that it ought not to be 
overborne. 



RELATION OF CAUSE AND EFFECT. 211 

V. 

There must be an Adequacy or Sufficiency of power 
to produce the effect. We look not only for a cause, but 
for a competent cause. Experience, it is true, and ex- 
perience alone, can tell us what is a sufficient cause, as it 
alone can inform us what is the cause. Still there seems 
to be an inherent conviction of the mind which leads us, 
in looking for a cause, to make the cause equal to the 
work which it accomplishes. Powers differ in kind, and 
they differ in degree. There is need, for instance, of 
more than human power to create a substance out of 
nothing. There is need of more than the power residing 
in material substance to produce thought and emotion 
and will. The ant which carries a seed of grain is not 
competent, like man, to carry a sack of corn ; and the 
strength of man is inadequate to raise a weight which 
can be lifted with ease by a steam-engine. The lily can 
reproduce a lily after its kind, but cannot produce a pine 
or an oak. These facts, I am aware, can be known only 
by observation. But underneath all our experiential 
knowledge there is a necessary principle which con- 
strains us, when we discover an effect, to look not only 
for a cause, but a cause with the kind of power which 
is fitted to produce the kind of effect, and to proportion 
the extent of the power to the extent of the effect. This 
original principle is the source of a number of most im- 
portant derivative ones ; as, when we have found a sub- 
stance exercising a certain sort of power, we anticipate 
that it will always exercise the same sort of power; and 
when we have found it exercising a certain amount of 
force, we expect that it will always be fit for the same, 
— of course, always on the necessary conditions being 
furnished. Thus, having found that our niinJs can fol- 



212 PRIMITIVE JUDGMENTS. 

low a train of reasoning, we are sure that thej'' will 
always be able to do so, — of course, on the supposition 
that the bodily organism needful to mental operation in 
man is not in a state of derangement. The amount of 
force which drives a ball a certain distance to-day, we 
are sure, will impel it to the same distance to-morrow. 
If a definite weight of oxygen has been ascertained 
chemically to unite with a certain definite weight of 
hydrogen, we are sure it will ever do so ; and if we find 
the very same amount of oxygen not drawing to it the 
same amount of hydrogen, we argue that there must 
have been some change in the conditions of the oxygen. 
It is acknowledged that in such judgments there is and 
must be an observational element, which in spontaneous 
thought is ever the more prominent, — it is ever the one 
about which the mind is most anxious, as being the only 
doubtful one ; still there is also a necessary principle, 
which is overlooked only because it is indisputable and 
invariable. Rising from earthly to heavenly things, we 
look on God, who has produced works in which are 
traces of such large power and admirable wisdom, as a 
Being possessed of power and wisdom corresponding to 
the effects we discover, and as capable, whenever he 
may see fit, of producing works distinguished by the 
same lofty characteristics. 

VI. 

I may now refer to some Defective or Erroneous Views 
commonly taken of Causation. Some have laid down the 
principle that it is like that affects like. This seems to 
have been the principle of Empedocles, the Sicilian phi- 
losopher, that like is only affected by like. The likeness 
of things enables us to put them into classes ; bat it eon- 
tains no principle of power. Very unlike things affect 
each other. 



RELATION OF CAUSE AND EFFECT. 213 

We are not constrained to seek for an endless series of 
causes. An effect comes from a substance or substances 
with power. But the law of causation does not require 
us to go further back and seek for an endless series of 
causes. When we trace the production of all things to 
God, the self-existent, with all power in himself, the 
mind is satisfied. It is thus we are to meet the scepti- 
cism of Hume and the difficulty of Kant as to our being 
obliged to seek for a cause of God. 

I have declared that while we have a native and 
necessary conviction, it does not announce what effect 
any given cause must produce, or what is the cause of 
any given effect. On an effect presenting itself we be- 
lieve that it must have a cause, but what the cause is, is 
to be determined by observation and a gathered expe- 
rience. It is of special importance to observe that — 

Our intuitive conviction is not of the Uniformity or 
Continuance of the Course of Nature. This is the vague 
shape in which the principle appears in the works of 
Reid and Stewart. The former says : " God hath im- 
planted in the human mind an original principle by 
which we believe and expect the continuance of the 
course of nature, and the continuance of those con- 
nections which we have observed in time past. Ante- 
cedent to all reasoning, we have by our constitution an 
anticipation that there is a fixed and steady course of 
nature." There is a uniformity in nature. It is formed 
by a number of causes being so arranged as to produce 
orderly results, such as the alternation of day and night 
and the succession of the seasons. This regularity does 
not proceed from mere causation. Day does not cause 
night, nor night day. Spring does not produce summer, 
nor does summer produce autumn. Every occurrence 
might be produced by causation without our having the 



214 PRIMITIVE JUDGMENTS. 

uniformity which we find in nature. To produce the 
order, it is needful that there be a collocation or adjust- 
ment of causes. The uniformity of nature is not a self- 
evident, a necessary, or universal principle of belief, 
which causation is. 

It is a circumstance worthy of being noted, that the powerful 
mind of Kant, in his chase after the Unconditioned, represented by 
him as ideal, finds a progressus or a regressus of some kind or other 
in time, in space, in matter, in cause, in the possible or actual, but 
admits fully and explicitly that in regard to substance the reason has 
no ground to proceed regressively with conditions. In regard to 
causality we have a series of causes which go back unendingly, the 
unconditioned being the absolute totality of the series. But in sub- 
stance there is no such regressus. " Was die Kategorien des realen 
Verhaltnisses unter den Erscheinungen anlangt, so schickt sich die 
Kategorie der Substanz mit ihren Accidenzen nicht zu einer trans- 
cendentalen Idee, d. i. die Vernunft hat keinen Grund, in Ansehung, 
ihrer regressiv auf Bedingungen zu gehen" (Kritik d. r. Vernunft, 
p. 328). We have only to connect this doctrine of substance, 
not necessarily calling, according to the principles of reason, for a 
regressus, with his admission that substance involves power, to be able 
to maintain, and this without falling into any contradiction, that the 
effects seen in nature of a power above nature argue a substance 
having power, for which we are not required to seek for a cause. 

Mr. J. S. Mill is successful in showing {Logic, Book iii. Chap, xxi.) 
that man's belief in the uniformity of nature is the result of experi- 
ence, that it is entertained only by the educated and civilized few, 
and that even among such it has been of slow growth. But Mr. Mill 
has fallen into a glaring "fallacy of confusion '' in confounding our 
belief in causation with our belief in the uniformity of nature. The 
distinction was before him, at least for an instant, when, speaking of 
the irregularities of nature, he says : " Such phenomena were com- 
monly, in that early stage of human knowledge, ascribed to the direct 
intervention of the will of some supernatural being, and therefore 
still to a cause. This shows the strong tendency of the human mind 
to ascribe every phenomenon to some cause or other." It is of this 
tendency that I affirm that it is native and irresistible. He tells us 
that one " accustomed to abstraction and analysis, who will fairly 
exert his faculties for the purpose, will, when his imagination has 



RELATION OF CAUSE AND EFFECT. 215 

once learned to entertain the notion, find no difficulty in conceiving 
that in some one, for instance, of the many firmaments into which 
sidereal astronomy now divides the universe, events may succeed one 
another at random, without any fixed law; nor can anything in our 
experience, or in our mental nature, constitute a sufficient, or indeed 
any, reason for believing that this is nowhere the case." This state- 
ment about fixed laws is ambiguous. If by fixed law be meant 
simply order and uniformity among physical events, the statement is 
true. But if meant to signify an event without a cause, material or 
mental, the statement is contradicted by our " mental nature," which 
impels us to seek for a cause of every event. He is right in affirm- 
ing that " experience " cannot authorize such a belief, but it is just as 
certain that our " mental nature " constrains us to entertain it ; and 
surely, if there be laws in physical nature, there may also be trust- 
worthy laws in our mental nature. There is the same confusion of 
two different things in the following passage: " The uniformity in 
the succession of events, otherwise called the law of causation, must 
be received, not as the law of the universe, but of that portion of it 
only which is within the range of our means of sure observation, with 
a reasonable degree of extension to adjacent cases." I freely admit 
all this in regard to the order observable everywhere in our Cosmos ; 
there may or may not be similar uniformity in the regions of space 
beyond. But our mental nature will not allow us to think, judge, or 
believe (these, and not " conceive," which is ambiguous, a^e the 
proper phrases), that in this our world, or in any other world, there 
can be an event without a cause. 

It is not to my present purpose to enter on the subject of Miracles, 
but it does fall in with the topics discussed in the text to remark, that 
there is nothing in a miracle opposed to any intuition of the mind, — 
certainly nothing opposed to our intuition as to cause. Hume, the 
sceptic, takes all sorts of objections to miracles, and the evidence by 
which they are supported, but he does not maintain that a miracle is 
impossible. It is "experience," according to him, "which assures 
us of the laws of nature " (Exsai/ on Miracles) ; and I hold that the 
same experience shows us effects in nature which constrain us, ac- 
cording to the intuitive law of causation, to argue a Power above 
nature, which power is an adequate cause of any miracle which may 
be attested by proper evidence. Brown has shown us very satisfac- 
torily that a miracle, with the Divine Power as its cause, is not in- 
consistent with our intuitive belief in causation (Cause and Effect, 
note E). Ever since Fichte published his Versuch einer Kritik alter 



216 PRIMITIVE JUDGMENTS. 

Offenbarung, there have been persons in Germany who represent it 
as impossible for God to perform a miracle. This may be a necessary 
consequence of those false assumptions regarding our knowing only 
self, which landed Fichte in an incongruous pantheism, in which he 
at one time represents the Ego as the All- including God, as the 
*' moral order; " and at another time represents God as the All, and 
absorbing the Ego. But it can plead in its behalf no principle either 
natural or necessary. A miracle is not in accordance with the uni- 
formity of nature, and the Bible miracles serve their purpose as 
evidences, because of this ; but they are in thorough accordance, as 
Mr. Mill admits, with the law of causation, for they claim God 
as their cause. The result at which we have arrived is, that the 
question of the occurrence of miracles is to be determined by the 
ordinary laws of evidence. 



BOOK IV. 

OUR INTUITIVE MORAL CONVICTIONS. 
CHAPTER I. 

THEIR GENERAL NATURE. 



Still deeper interests are involved in our being able 
to prove that there is an immutable and eternal morality 
than even in showing that there is immutable and eternal 
truth. After having labored at such length to demon- 
strate that there are fundamental principles involved in 
the intellectual exercises of the mind, it will not be need- 
ful to take such pains to prove that there are like con- 
victions of a moral character. 

While our moral powers are not the same with the 
intellectual, they are in many respects analogous. We 
have a power of discerning truth and error ; we have also 
a power of knowing moral good and evil. The latter is 
the Conscience, as the former is the Intelligence. I am 
not here to unfold its properties and its modes of action, 
as I have done in my " Psychology, the Motive Powers." 
Nor am I to construct a science of our moral nature, as 
is done in Ethics. I am simply to set forth the funda- 
mental principles involved in Morality. 

II. 

The primitive moral principles take the same Three 
Forms as the intellectual ones. We have a moral cogni- 



218 OUR INTUITIVE MORAL CONVICTIONS. 

tion when the acts are immediately before us, and we 
discern at once that certain of them are good, such as 
benevolence, and certain of them are evil, such as malice. 
We have moral beliefs going beyond our immediate per- 
ceptions, as when we declare the character of Cato to be 
commendable, and that of Sextus to be vile. We can 
thus rise to the contemplation of a goodness which is 
eternal. We pronounce moral judgments, as when we 
declare that virtue deserves happiness. 

HI. 

Our moral intuitions are to be tried by the same three 
tests as the intellectual, namely, self-evidence, necessity, 
and catholicity. We perceive at once that this daugh- 
ter is good when toiling for an invalid mother. When 
we candidly contemplate the deed, we cannot be made 
to decide otherwise. We notice, thirdly, that the act 
meets with an approving response in every bosom. 

It is of special importance to observe what is the ne- 
cessity attached to these moral convictions. As every 
intuition has its own nature, so it has also its own kind 
of corresponding necessity. A necessity attached to a 
cognition, that there is a colored surface before my eyes, 
is somewhat different from the necessity to believe that 
space is unbounded ; but there is a necessity in both 
when the mind contemplates the objects. So our con- 
viction that ingratitude is a sin is different from either 
of these, while there is a necessity of judgment in each 
when the cases are fairly represented to it. The neces- 
sity covers what is involved in the intuition, neither less 
nor more. 



CHAPTER II. 

VIRTUE WITH ITS ATTACHED OBLIGATIONS. 

I. 

What is approved of by our Moral Nature, or Con- 
science, is called Moral Good, or Virtue. I believe we 
can theoretically determine what virtue is. It is Love 

ACCORDING TO LAW. 

In maintaining this position we must include in the 
love Self-Love. We are bound to love ourselves. Self- 
love is not merely an impulse, an instinct, it is a duty. 
But let us understand what we mean when we say so. 
We do not mean by this a love of pleasure, a love of 
power, a love of fame, a love of money; all these are 
selfish affections. The affection that is a duty is a love 
of ourselves as ourselves, of ourselves as God made us, 
with intelligence, with feeling, with conscience, moral 
and responsible. 

It is to be a love regulated by Law. We are not at 
liberty to cast away ourselves, our health, our lives, our 
talents, our affections, our character, our purity, our in- 
fluence for good. We are bound to respect, to honor 
ourselves, to improve ourselves, to cultivate the gifts 
which God has bestowed upon us, and extend our in- 
fluence for good. Temperance, in the Greek and Roman 
senses of the term, should be to us one of the cardinal vir- 
tues : we have to restrain ourselves, our lusts and pas- 
sions. We are to aim at nothing less than holiness, a 
separation from all evil. A self-love of this kind, that is, 
love regulated by law, is a virtue,, and a virtue of the 



220 OUR INTUITIVE MORAL CONVICTIONS. 

highest order. But it is ever to be accompanied with a 
sister Virtue. 

11. 

It is love to Others. The standard of this is already 
set : we are to love our neighbors as we love ourselves. 
It may manifest itself in two forms : — 

The Love of Complacency. We delight in the object 
or person beloved. It is thus that the mother clasps her 
infant to her bosom ; thus that the sister interests herself 
in every movement of her little brother, and is proud of 
his feats ; thus that the father, saying little but feeling 
much, follows the career of his son in the trying rivalries 
of the world ; thus that throughout our lives, our hearts, 
if hearts we have, clung round the tried friends of our 
youth; thus that the wife would leave this world with 
the last look on her husband ; thus that the father would 
depart with his sons and daughters around his couch. 
Love looks out for the persons beloved. The mother 
discovers her son in that crowd. The blacksmith 

Hears his daughter's voice, 
Siuging in the village choir. 

The Love of Benevolence. In this we not only delight 
in the contemplation and society of the persons beloved ; 
we wish well to them, we wish them all that is good. 
" Therefore all things whatsoever ye would that men 
should do to you, do ye even so to them, for this is the 
law and the prophets." We will oblige them if we can ; 
we will serve them if in our power ; we will watch for 
opportunities of promoting their welfare ; we will make 
sacrifices for their good. This love is ready to flow forth 
towards relatives and friends, towards neighbors and 
companions, towards all with whom we come in contact ; 
it will go out towards the whole family of mankind. We 



VIRTUE WITH ITS ATTACHED OBLIGATIONS. 221 

are ready to increase their happiness, and in the highest 
exercises of love to raise them in the scale of being, and 
to elevate them morally and spiritually. 

III. 

Moral Good lays an Obligation on us to attend to it. 
This sense, or rather conviction of obligation, is one of 
the peculiarities, is indeed the chief peculiarity, of our 
moral perceptions. Herein do our moral convictions, 
whether of the natui-e of cognitions, beliefs, or judg- 
ments, differ from the intellectual convictions which 
have passed under our notice in the previous parts of 
this treatise. That a straight line is the shortest be- 
tween two points, this I am constrained to decide when 
my attention is called to the subject, but I know of no 
duty thence arising, no affection which I should thereon 
cherish, no action which I ought to do. But when I am 
led to believe that there is a good God who made me 
and upholds me, the mind declares that it is and must 
be good to love and obey that Being, and that there is 
an obligation lying on me to do so. This is expressed 
by such phrases as Seov, duty, right, ought, obligation, the 
convictions embodied in which cannot be accounted for 
on any utilitarian hypothesis. It is shown that a par- 
ticular action readily within our power will tend to 
promote the happiness of an individual or of society ; 
the mind's apprehension of this is one thing, and the 
conviction that we ought to do it is an entirely different 
thing, and the two should never be confounded. 

But the conscience is not only a cognitive, it is a mo- 
tive, power. This conviction of obligation distinguishes 
it at once from the other motive, as it does from the other 
cognitive, powers. The inducements addressed to man's 
sense of duty are altogether different from those ad- 



222 ^ OUR INTUITIVE MORAL CONVICTIONS. 

dressed to the other appetencies of the mind. The love 
of pleasure, of fame, and of activity, do all hold out 
allurements to man, but none of them carries with it a 
binding obligation. When we follow them we have no 
sense of merit ; when we decline them we have no sense 
of guilt. It is different when our moral convictions say 
that a particular line of conduct should be pursued. We 
feel now not only that we may do it, but that we should 
do it, and that if we neglect to do it we are guilty of sin. 
Hence arises the great ethical doctrine, expounded in so 
masterly a manner by Bishop Butler, that the conscience 
is supreme ; that is, supreme among the other moving 
powers. Just as appetite craves for food, and the love 
of society for social intercourse, so the conscience directs 
to certain conduct, but with this difference, that it de- 
clares itself superior to the other springs of action. It 
carries with it its authority, and asserts its claims, and is 
prepared to denounce us if we disregard them. 

IV. 

The Conscience points to an Authority above itself. 
It is supreme as within the mind, but it is not absolutely 
supreme. It claims to be superior to all other motives, 
such as the love of pleasure, and even to the desire of 
intellectual improvement ; indeed, it seems to point to 
an authority above the mind altogether. At the same 
time, it does not seem to announce what is the nature of 
the object which it would prompt us to seek after. In 
this respect it is like some of our intellectual intuitions, 
which impel us to look round for something which the}'- 
do not themselves reveal. Thus, intuitive causality con- 
strains us when we discover an effect to look for a cause, 
but does not specify what the cause is. In like manner 
our moral faculty seems to me to point to some power, 



VIRTUE WITH ITS ATTACHED OBLIGATIONS. 223 

principle, or being, it says not what, above itself. It 
does not claim for itself that it is infallible, that it is 
sufficient, that it is independent. It bows to something 
which has authority; it acknowledges a standard which 
is and must be right ; it looks up for sanction and guid- 
ance. It says that it ought to yield to no earthly power; 
but it does not affirm of itself that it can never mistake, 
and that there is no authority to which it should submit. 
On the contrary, it often finds itself in difficulty and per- 
plexity, and feels that it should look round and up for a 
light, and it is sure that there is such a light. What is 
thus unknown to the intuition itself, but which, not- 
withstanding, it is ever seeking, is revealed by other 
processes. 

V. 

This obligation, when we are led to believe in a Su- 
preme Being, takes the form of Law ; and we believe 
that we are under Law to God. Our moral convictions 
do not, so it seems to me, of themselves compel us to 
believe in the existence of God. I am persuaded, how- 
ever, that like most of our deeper intuitions (as I hope 
subsequently to show) they do point upwards to God. 
And whenever we do, by combined intuition and the 
obvious facts of experience, reach God, the God who 
gave us all our endowments, and therefore our moral 
constitution, the mind traces up the obligation under 
which it lies to him. The expression of this inward 
conviction now is, not that we are under obligation to an 
unknown power, but under law, and under law to God. 
It is thus indeed we get the peculiar idea of moi-al gov- 
ernment and moral law, not from sense, nor from pleas- 
ure, nor from utility, but from conscience constraining 
us to feel obligation, and combined intuition and experi- 



224 OUR INTUITIVE MORAL CONVICTIONS. 

ence leading us to trace up that law to God as the Being 
who sanctions it. Till this object is reached our moral 
intuition is felt to be vague, indefinite ; it is craving for 
something which it feels to be wanting : but when God 
is found, as he cannot fail to be found when we are in 
search of him, then the intuition is satisfied, and ever 
after connects the law with the Lawgiver. 

VI. 

Moral good is perceived as having Desert, as Approv- 
able and Rewardable. This, too, is a peculiar idea, de- 
rived from the moral power in man, and cannot have 
been derived from, as it cannot be resolved into, any 
modification of pleasure, or pain, or sensation of any 
kind. We are convinced in regard to every good action 
that it is meritorious ; we bestow upon it our approba- 
tion, and we look for encouragement and reward. This 
conviction operates with other considerations in leading 
us to look to God as the Governor of this world, and as 
ready to uphold and defend the right. There are times 
when our expectations on this subject are disappointed, 
and when we see acts of moral heroism only landing him 
who performs them in opprobrium and suffering. Still, 
even in such cases, our instincts keep firm, in spite of all 
appearances to the contrary ; and we believe that, sooner 
or later, in this world or in the world to come, the deeds 
will meet with their appropriate reward. 

The systems whicli represent man's moral faculty as a mere feel- 
ing or sentiment, such as those of Adam Smith, of Thomas Brown, 
of Sir James Mackintosh, are chargeable with two defects : First, 
the theory does not come up to the full mental facts, which embrace 
perception or knowledge, and judgment as well as emotion; and as 
a consequence, secondly, they make it appear as if virtue might arise 
from the peculiar constitution or temperament of the race. 



VIRTUE WITH ITS ATTACHED OBLIGATIONS. 225 

Mr. J. S. Mill gives up Paley as an expounder of utilitarianism 
{Dissertations, Vol. ii. p. 460), and allows, as to Bentham, " that 
there were large deficiencies and hiatuses in his scheme of human 
nature " (p. 462). To whom, then, are we to look, if we would ex- 
amine a system which assumes such different shapes; which now 
takes the form of a selfish system whose principle is that every man 
should seek his own happiness, now the form of a benevolent system 
which says that a man should promote the happiness of the greatest 
number ? In the first of these forms it is at once set aside by an 
appeal to our nature, and to feelings which Mr. Mill admits to be in 
our nature. In the second of these forms, that taken by Bentham 
and Mill, there is a principle of intuitive morals surreptitiously ad- 
mitted, that we should look to the happiness of others as well as our 
own. Mr. Mill says, " The matter in debate is what is right, — not 
whether what is right ought to be done " (p. 460). This is not a full 
or accurate account of the matter in debate. One question in debate 
is, Can the utilitarian theory account for our conviction as to right 
and wrong, merit and guilt? I hold that it cannot. The higher class 
of utilitarians seem to trace these convictions to the association of 
' ideas proceeding on our feelings of pleasure and pain. Thus Mr. 
Mill says (Vol. i. p. 137), " The idea of the pain of another is natu- 
rally painful ; the idea of the pleasure of another is naturally 
pleasurable. From this fact in our natural constitution, all our 
affections, both of love and aversion, towards human beings, in so 
far as they are different from those we entertain towards mere inani- 
mate objects which are pleasant or disagreeable to us, are held by 
the best teachers of the theory of utility to originate. In this, the 
unselfish part of our nature, lies a foundation, even independently of 
inculcation from without, for the generation of moral feelings." Let 
it be observed that this makes the very unselfish part of our nature 
stand on a selfish basis. "The idea of the pleasure of another is 
naturally pleasurable," that is, to ourselves. I hold that we are led 
to love our fellow-creatures independently of its being pleasant to 
ourselves ; and that it is when we love them that the affection is 
found to be pleasant, by the appointment of the Author of our con- 
stitution, who thus prompts us to benevolence, and rewards us for 
cherishing it. The theory does not account for our benevolent feel- 
ings, and it fails still more when it would account for our moral 
convictions. I admit that it might give some explanation of certain 
accompaniments, but it can give no account of the conviction of 
"ought," "obligation," "duty," "merit," "desert," "guilt." 



226 OUR INTUITIVE MORAL CONVICTIONS. 

A second question in debate is, Can the utilitarian show that any- 
thing is ** right ' ' V that there is truly anything such that it ' ' ought 
to be done " ? Suppose some sensationalist or sceptic were to main- 
tain, as against the utilitarian, that he was not bound to promote this 
happiness of the greatest number, how would the advocate of the 
greatest happiness principle reply to him? Consistently, he could 
appeal only to these personal feelings of pleasure and pain ; and if 
he appealed to anything deeper, it must be to the very moral prin- 
ciple whose existence he denies. There is a third question in debate, 
which will be more easily determined after we have settled the other 
two. For when it is shown that man has convictions as to moral 
good and evil, and that these require him to do certain acts and ab- 
stain from others, we may be the better prepared to admit, as to 
certain of these acts, that they do not contemplate the promotion of 
happiness. Thus, to love God is good, and to refuse to any one his 
due affection and gratitude for favors seems to be evil, independently 
of the happiness of the creature or Creator being thereby augmented 
or diminished. A. fourth question is, Does utility afford a good test 
and measure of virtue and vice ? It is foreign to the scope of this 
treatise to enter on this question, but I may remark that, the ulti- 
mate appeal to "ought" and "duty" being taken away, and the 
appeal in the last resource being to pleasure and pain, utilitarianism 
will not train men to deeds of self-sacrifice, and those who have 
embraced it will ever be tempted to give way on great emergencies, 
and to yield and equivocate when they should at all hazards resist 
the evil. And it has been shown again and again, that it is beyond 
the capacity of man to foresee the results of acts, or even to dis- 
cern the tendency of certain acts done in complicated circum- 
stances. But, omitting this, it is to my present purpose to call on 
my readers to notice that the theory of an independent moraUty, 
and of moral conviction, admits and embraces all that is true in 
utilitarianism. It affirms that we ought to promote the greatest 
happiness of the greatest number ; and in regard to all questions 
bearing on happiness, the conscience requires us to weigh conse- 
quences, and to look to long issues and results. 



CHAPTER III. 

EKKOR AND SIN". 



Our academic moralists are commonly averse to look 
at or consider these two topics. But if there be truth 
in our world, there is also error; if there be good, there 
is also evil. Those who profess to expound our nature 
must look at the one alternative as well as the other. 
Nor let it be said, with Augustine, that sin is a mere 
negation. Malice and deceit and adultery are as much 
realities as goodwill, integrity, and purity. 

I have been arguing that our intellectual and moral 
intuitions are all necessary and universal. This doctrine, 
however, must not be so stated as to imply that it is im- 
possible for man to fall into error, or for the conscience 
to come to a false decision, or for human beings to com- 
mit sin. 

That men do, in fact, fall into error, is evident from 
this single circumstance, that scarcely two persons can 
be brought to accord in opinion, even on points of im- 
portance. In regard, indeed, to necessary truths, there 
are certain restrictions laid on the mind. No man who 
considers the subject can be made to believe that two 
straight lines will enclose a space. Still, even in regard 
to such truths, the mind has a capacity of ignorance and 
of error ; it may refuse to consider them, or, mistaking 
their nature, it may make statements inconsistent with 
them without knowing it. Those who have gone through 
the demonstrations of Euclid are constrained to believe 



228 OUR INTUITIVE MORAL CONVICTIONS. 

the truth of everj^ proposition, but the truths have never 
so much as been presented to the minds of the great 
majority of mankind, and many persons might easily be 
persuaded that the angles of certain triangles are equal 
to less or to more than two right angles. But whatever 
the restrictions laid on our liability to error in necessary 
truth, there seem to be no limits to man's exposure to 
mistakes in other matters. There is boundless room for 
them in all conclusions which are dependent on expe- 
riential evidence, especially when the proof is of a cumu- 
lative character. In all such matters the mind may 
refuse to look at the probation, or it may take only what 
is favorable to one side, and may arrive at most erro- 
neous and preposterous results. This liability to error 
is apt to appear in all affairs in which we are under the 
influence of pride or party spirit, or a biassed and preju- 
diced disposition ; in short, wherever there is moral evil 
swaying the will, and leading it to look on evidence in 
a partial spirit. If I were immediately cognizunt of the 
heart of a good man, and could see the springs that move 
him to benevolence and self-sacrifice, I sliould be con- 
strained to approve of him ; but I may be prepossessed 
against him, and I twist and torture facts till I bring 
myself to believe that he is doing all this from a deep 
designing selfishness. I believe that while ignorance 
may arise from the finite nature of our faculties, and 
from a limited means of knowledge, positive error does 
in every case proceed directly or indirectly from a cor- 
rupted will, leading us to pronounce a hasty judgment 
without evidence, or to seek partial evidence on the side 
to which our inclinations lean. A thoroughly pure and 
candid will would, in my opinion, preserve man, even 
with his present limited faculties, not indeed from igno- 
rance on many points, but from all possibility of posi- 
tive mistakes. 



ERROR AND SIN. 229 

But the question may be asked, how is the existence 
of sin, and of wrong decisions of the conscience, consis- 
tent with the necessity which attaches to our moral con- 
victions ? The difficulty can easily be removed so far as 
the existence of sin is concerned ; for sin must ever pro- 
ceed from the region of the will, which is free to do good, 
but also free to do evil. It may be necessary for the 
conscience to decide in a certain manner, but it is not 
necessary that the will should do what the conscience 
commands. And it is to the influence exercised by a 
disobedient will upon the conscience that I attribute all 
the errors in its decisions. In whatever way we may 
reconcile them, these two facts can each be established 
on abundant evidence : the one, that in the primitive 
exercises of conscience there is a conviction of necessity ; 
the other, that the conscience is liable to manifold per- 
versions. Care must be taken not to state the two so 
as to make the one appear to be inconsistent with the 
other ; both can be so enunciated as to make all seeming 
contradiction vanish. If we look directly and fairly at 
moral excellence, the mind must declare it to be good. 
But then, first, the mind may refuse to look at it at all; 
and, secondly, it may not regard it in the right light. If 
we look upon the living and the true God in the proper 
aspect, we must acknowledge that we owe him love and 
obedience ; but then we may refuse to look upon him, 
we may contrive to live without God, and God may not 
be in all our thoughts ; or we may fashion to ourselves 
a Deity with a degraded nature, making him one alto- 
gether like unto ourselves, and then the proper awe and 
affection will no longer rise in our bosoms. 

It is to be taken into account that, while our decisions 
upon the acts presented may be intuitively certain, yet 
that the acts are not intuitively presented, and may be 



230 OUR INTUITIVE MORAL CONVICTIONS. 

very inaccurately presented. The conscience, it is to be 
remembered, is a reflex faculty, judging of objects pre- 
sented to it by the other powers, and the representation 
given it may be incorrect. The liability to deception 
and perversion is increased by the circumstance that the 
states of mind with which our voluntary acts are mixed 
up are of a very complicated character. There is room 
in this way for giving a wrong account of our actual 
state of mind at any given moment. I contribute a sum 
of money to relieve a person in distress ; I may do so 
from very mixed or doubtful motives ; but I am nat- 
urally led by self-love to look on the motive as good, and 
then I cherish a feeling of self-approbation, in which I 
should by no means have been justified had I taken a 
searching view of the whole mental state. Again, I find 
a neighbor doing the very same act, and I am led by 
jealousy to attribute selfish motives to him, and I con- 
demn him in a judgment which may be equallj'^ unwar- 
ranted. By such seductions as these the mind may 
become utterly perverted in the representations which 
it gives or receives, and in the consequent moral judg- 
ments which it pronounces. In the case of these perver- 
sions of the conscience, as in the cp,se of the errors of the 
understanding (as we have previously seen), the evil is 
to be traced to the will refusing to give obedience to its 
proper law, and conjuring up a series of deceptions to 
excuse and defend itself. The intuition is after all there, 
but it is difficult in a mind perverted by a corrupt and 
prejudiced will to put it in a position to act aright. In 
order to do this it may be needful to have a divine law 
revealed, and this applied by a teaching and quickening 
Spirit from above. 



ERROR AND SIN. 231 

n. 

We are already in the heart of the subject of Sin, 
a topic which academic moralists studiously avoid, but 
which must be carefully looked at by those who would 
give a correct account of our moral constitution. In 
referring to it here, I do not profess to be able to give 
an explanation of the origin of sin under the govern- 
ment of God, whose power is almighty, and who shows 
that he hates sin. This seems to be a mystery which 
human reason cannot clear up. The topic certainly does 
not fall within the scope of our present investigation. 
I have here simply to consider sin in its reference to our 
moral convictions. 

Sin is a quality of Voluntary acts. It always resides 
in some mental affection or act in which there is the 
exercise of freewill. The guilt of the sin thus always 
lies with him who commits it. He cannot throw the 
blame on any other, for he has himself given his consent 
to it. Others may have seduced him into it, and in that 
case the criminality of having tempted him lies with 
them ; and then the sin of having yielded to the tempta- 
tion, and having done the wicked deed, lies with himself: 
he can devolve it on no other. 

Our moral convictions declare that sin is of evil De- 
sert, Condemnable, Punishable. This conviction is of 
precisely an opposite character to that which we entertain 
in regard to good affection and action. We declare the 
sin to have in itself evil desert ; we condemn it in conse- 
quence, and we say of it, that it should be discouraged, 
nay, punished. The very ideas, so full of meaning, in- 
volved in these mental convictions, are native, original, 
and necessary. We cannot get them from mere sensa- 
tions of pleasure or pain, nor from any intellectual opera- 



232 OUR INTUITIVE MORAL CONVICTIONS. 

tion whatever ; and yet we are constrained to take this 
view of sin wherever it is pressed fairly upon our notice. 
It is this conviction that stirs up and keeps alive a sense 
of guilt and apprehension of punishment in the breast 
of every sinner. It is found even among children, and 
among the rudest and most ignorant savages, who are 
urged thereby to try some means of avoiding or averting 
the wrath of God, and are prepared in consequence to 
listen to the parent, or teacher, or missionary, when he 
speaks of the desert of sin, and points to a Saviour who 
suffered in our room and stead, and so made reconcilia- 
tion for transgressors. 



CHAPTER IV. 
THE WILL. 

PRIMITIVE TRUTH LNVOLVED IN WILL. 



Will has a much larger place in the mind than is 
commonly allotted. I believe it is exercised in nearly 
every minute of our waking life, say in guiding our steps 
as we walk, or in keeping us in the proper position while 
we sit, or in cherishing wishes or regulating our thoughts. 
Its essential element is Choice, or the opposite of choice, 
Rejection. It takes a variety of forms. 

One of its first is Attention. We detain a present 
state of mind. We keep before us, for a time, an object 
'in which we are interested. This is an important povs^er, 
as, in retaining the thought, feeling, or object, we may 
call up all that is associated with it in a lengthened 
train, or collected in a centre round self. Chalmers 
speaks of attention as a link between the intellectual 
and the moral. 

Will may rise to a higher form ; it may become a 
Wish : we wish to gain an object or an end, or to be 
delivered from it. Our wishes or voluntary aversions 
constitute a large portion of our conscious experience 
from hour to hour, almost from minute to minute. 
They are our longings and aversions, our adherences 
and our antipathies. In the selfish man they become a 
brooding over successes or reverses ; in the kindly in- 
clined man they dwell on the happiness or successes of 
others. They constitute a large portion of the aspira- 



234 OUR INTUITIVE MORAL CONVICTIONS. 

tions of the religious man, as breathing for instance in 
the Psalms: " Oh that I knew where I could find Him!" 

Will takes its highest shape in Volition, or the deter- 
mination towards which it is always tending, and in 
which it terminates when circumstances admit. Volition 
starts all our undertakings, and is needful to their exe- 
cution. A strong will is the original of all great deeds, 
good or evil; it produces the hero and the powerful 
villain. 

The Will in these three forms has its place in all the 
virtues and in all the graces ; without this they would 
not be moral. In benevolence we wish well to our 
neighbors, singly or collectively. In religion faith be- 
comes trust, and repentance the turning from sin unto 
God. 

II. 

Moral Good and Evil lie in the region of the Will ; 
Will being viewed in the large sense explained. In every 
act which is, properly speaking, moi-al or immoral, there 
is an element of choice under some or other of the forms 
which it takes. It is in acts or affections which we are 
free to perform, but from which we are free to abstain, 
that the conscience discerns a moral quality, and on which 
it pronounces its sentence. There is choice, and there- 
fore will, in all cases in which we adopt or reject any 
proposal laid before us by ourselves or others, as there 
is also in our wishes and voluntary aversions. The fond- 
lings, resolutions and rejections may unite themselves 
with any of our feelings, and even with our intellectual 
exercises, and make them in a sense voluntary. 

III. 
The Will is Free. In saying so I mean to assert, not 



THE WILL. 235 

that it is free to act as it pleases, which is not universally 
true, for the will may be hindered from action, as when 
I will to move my arm, and it is not obeyed because of 
paralysis or physical restraint : I claim for it an anterior 
and a higher power, a power in the mind to choose, and, 
when it chooses, a consciousness that it might choose 
otherwise. This truth is revealed to us by the inward 
sense, and is not to be set aside by any other truth what- 
soever. It is a first truth, equal to the highest, to no 
one of which it will ever yield. It cannot be set aside 
by any other truth, not even by any other first truth, 
and certainly by no derived truth. Whatever other 
proposition is true, this is true also, that man has free- 
will. If there be any other truth apparently inconsis- 
tent with it, care must be taken so to express it that it 
may not be really contradictory. It is a truth which 
may be expressed in words ; it is so expressed when it 
is said that the mind has in itself the power of choice. 
It is the oflBce of the psychologist and the moralist to 
endeavor to determine exactly what is involved in this. 
But this is to be done, after all, mainly by an appeal to 
consciousness. 

So much is clear, so very clear that any attempts to 
make it clearer by discussion will only stir up mud and 
trouble the waters. The difficulties which encompass 
the subject do not originate in Freewill itself, but in 
its connection with two other truths. First, there is the 
Divine Foreknowledge and Sovereignty, doctrines which 
recommend themselves to high reason, and which are 
decisively written in the Word of God. Secondly, there 
is the appearance of causation in the mind, even in its 
voluntary acts. When we know a man's character we 
can anticipate what he will do in certain circumstances ; 
of the man of integrity, that he will not tell a lie. Statis- 



236 OUR INTUITIVE MORAL CONVICTIONS. 

tics of criminal acts depending on freewill can be drawn 
out as certain as those of mortality depending on phys- 
ical causes. The statistician can tell us approximately 
how many thefts and murders will be committed in a 
year in a given district, just as he can predict how many 
deaths there will be, and so far as he fails, in either case, 
it is from a want of knowledge. 

I do not profess to be able to clear up the difficulty 
arising from causation on the one side facing freewill on 
the other. Perhaps the safest course is to affirm that we 
are obliged to believe in both, and that it cannot be 
proven that there is a contradiction between them when 
they are properly expounded. Here as in so many cases 
we have to believe in truths of which we do not see the 
full meaning, and to believe that two propositions may 
be true while we cannot discover the reconciliation, if 
indeed a reconciliation is needed. I may call attention 
to two circumstances which may somewhat lessen the 
perplexities. 

First, causation is not all of one kind. Cause may act 
in a different way upon our will from that in which it 
acts in other departments of our natui^e. The mind 
has undoubtedly a power of freewill. But consciousness, 
which is alwa3's of the present, cannot tell what circum- 
stances antecedent have swayed the will or how. The 
antecedents do not operate as causes operate in physical 
nature, or in our intellectual being. It can be shown 
that cause in mind is of a different nature from cause in 
matter. It is conceivable that in the peculiar nature of 
cause, as operating on or in the will, may be found the 
means of removing the mystery. We know where the 
secret lies, though we may not be able to find it. 

Secondly, causation, always with power, seems here, as 
in a number of other cases, to be of a duplex or complex 



THE WILL. 237 

character. We have seen that in all physical and in all 
mental causes there are two or more agents. So in vol- 
untary action there are two antecedents : there is the 
Motive and there is the Will. Their concurrence is 
necessary to the product. 

It is necessary here to ascertain definitely what a 
Motive is. It is something addressed to the will prior to 
its action. It differs in the case of different individuals 
and of the same man at different times. I have known 
a tradesman who at one part of his life could not pass a 
tavern without being tempted to enter and seek excite- 
ment in intoxicating drink. To another tradesman the 
house presented no such allurement, and it ceased to 
present any temptation to the first man when he had 
succeeded in conquering his evil habit. A motive is in 
the mind prior to action, and alluring to a certain action. 
It may consist partly of some external circumstance ; it 
has always an accompanying mental appetence, say the 
love of pleasure, of renown, or of money. This appetence 
may be a natural inclination, or it may be the result of 
a course of action, say our habits, at every step in the 
formation of which there may have been acts of the will 
for all of which the individual was responsible at the 
time. What in the end presents itself to the Will be- 
fore action is the Motive. The Motive has no compelling 
power. The Will, or rather the mind in the exercise 
of Will, is free. It is free to choose, it is free to reject. 
No action takes place till the will chooses. When it 
accepts or rejects, it sanctions the motive. For this it is 

responsible. 

IV. 

The Will is Responsible for all its acts of clioice or re- 
jection, be they volitions or be they acts of attention or 
wishes. We have seen that our moral nature points to 
a power above itself, a power which has authority ; it 



238 OUR INTUITIVE MORAL CONVICTIONS. 

should bow to that authority ; it must give account of 
itself to that power. When God is revealed by his works 
without or within us, then we are constrained to believe 
that we are under law to God. So then every one must 
give account of himself to God. Thus far the philosophy 
of intuition carries us. I am not convinced that it goes 
farther. I am not sure that it proves to us that there is 
and must be a judgment day, but it pi'ompts us to look 
out for it, and furnishes a presumption in its favor. 

A different method of reconciling freedom with causation has been 
introduced by Kant, who has been followed by a long train of theo- 
logians and metaphysicians. According to this view, the mind 
knows only phenomena, and not things, and the law of cause and 
effect is a mental framework giving a form to our knowledge of phe- 
nomena. It applies, therefore, to appearances and not to things, 
which, for aught we know, or can know in this world, may or may 
not obey the law of causation. Kant acknowledges that we are led 
by the speculative principles of the mind to look on even the will as 
under the dominion of cause, but then it is quite conceivable that 
the thing itself may after all be free, and we are led to believe it to 
be free by the Practical Reason. Now, I have to remark, first of 
all, on this theory, that it must be taken in its entirety. We are not 
at liberty (as some would do) to adopt it merely so far as it may suit 
our purpose, and refuse the very foundation on which it is built. 
We must, in particular, admit as a fundamental principle that we 
can never know things; that causation has no respect whatever to 
things, but is a mere subjective principle of the mind; that we can- 
not prove the existence of God from causation. But 1 have failed 
in one of the main ends of this treatise if I have not succeeded in 
showing that the mind has knowledge of things in its primary exer- 
cises, that we know objects as having potency, and that the law of 
cause and effect refers to such objects. If we deny this, we are 
denying certain of the intuitions of the mind in some of their clear- 
est enunciations ; and if we deny them in one of their declarations, 
why not in others ? and if we deny one set, why not every other 
set? till at last we know not what to believe and what to disbelieve. 
Those who believe that the mind can come to the knowledge of 
things, and that they discover power in things, cannot resort to this 
theory. 



CHAPTER V. 

RELATION OF MOEAL GOOD AND HAPPINESS. 

These two have a number of points of connection 
and correspondence. Much of moral good consists in the 
voluntary promotion of happiness, and the diminution of 
pain in a world in which there is such a liability to suf- 
fering. A very large number of human virtues, and of 
vices, too, take their origin from man's capacity of pleas- 
ure and pain ; and in a state of things in which there 
was no possibility of increasing felicity, or removing 
misery, many of this world's virtues would altogether 
disappear. Still the two, while they have many inter- 
esting points of affinity, are not to be identified. In par- 
ticular, we are not to resolve virtue into a mere tendency 
to promote the pleasure of the individual or happiness of 
the race. There seem to me to be certain great truths 
which the mind perceives at once in regard to the con- 
nection of the two. 

I. 

The good is good altogether independent of the pleas- 
ure it may bring. There is a good which does not 
immediately contemplate the production of happiness. 
Such, for example, are love to God, the glorifying of 
God, and the hallowing of his name: these have no 
respect, in our entertaining and cherishing them, to an 
augmentation of the Divine felicity. No doubt such an 
act or spirit may, by reflection of light, tend to brighten 
our own felicity ; but this is an indirect effect, which fol- 
lows only where we cherish the temper and perform the 



240 OUR INTUITIVE MORAL CONVICTIONS. 

corresponding work in the idea that it is right. We do 
deeds of justice to the distant, to the departed, and the 
dead, who never may be conscious of what we have per- 
formed. Even in regard to services done with the view 
of promoting the happiness of the individual, or of the 
community, we are made to feel that, if happiness be 
good, the benevolence which leads us to seek the happi- 
ness of others is still better, is alone morally good. In 
all cases the conscience constrains us to decide that vir- 
tue is good, whether it does or does not contemplate the 
production of pleasure. 

Our moral constitution declares that we ought to pro- 
mote the happiness of all who are susceptible of happi- 
ness. The only plausible form of the utilitarian theory 
of morals is that elaborated by Bentham, who says that 
we ought to promote the greatest happiness of the great- 
est number. But why ought we to do so? Whence get 
we the should, the obligation, the duty ? Why should I 
seek the happiness of any other being than myself ? why 
the happiness of a great number, or of the greatest num- 
ber? why the happiness evan of any one individual be- 
yond the unit of self ? If the advocates of the " great- 
est happiness " principle will only answer this question 
thoroughly, they must call in a moral principle, or take 
refuge in a system against which our whole nature 
rebels, in a theory which says that we are not required 
to do more than look after our own gratifications. The 
very advocates of the greatest happiness theory are thus 
constrained, in consistency with their view, to call in an 
ethical principle, and this will be found, if they examine 
it, to require more from man than that he should further 
the felicity of others. But while it covers vastly more 
ground, it certainly includes this, that we are bound, as 



RELATION OF MORAL GOOD AND HAPPINESS. 241 

much as in us lies, to promote the welfare of all who are 

capable of having their misery alleviated or their felicity 

enhanced. 

III. 

Our moral convictions afl&rm that moral good should 
meet with happiness. They seem to declare that this is 
in itself appropriate and good ; and when we are led to 
believe in the existence of a good God, we are sure that 
he will seek to secure this end. Experience, no doubt, 
shows many things in seeming opposition to this, shows 
many crushed with misfortune and wrung with agony, 
who are far more virtuous than those who are in the 
enjoyment of health and prosperity. But our inward 
convictions guide us to the right conclusions in spite of 
these apparently contradictory results of outward obser- 
vation. They lead us to believe that they who are thus 
aflBicted are after all suffering no injustice, inasmuch as 
they have sinned against Heaven, and to expect that the 
wicked will not be allowed to pass unpunished. And 
since we do not discover a full retribution in this world, 
they lead us to look forward to a day of judgment, in 
which all the inequalities and seeming incongruities of 
this present dispensation will be rectified in appearance 
as well as in reality, and the justice of God's moral gov- 
ernment fully vindicated. 

IV. 

Our moral convictions declare that sin merits pain as 
a punishment. There seems to be as close a connection 
between sin and pain as there is between virtue and 
happiness. There may indeed be happiness, and there 
may be suffering, where there is neither virtue nor the 
opposite, as, for example, among the brute creation ; but 
we decide that, wherever there is virtue, it merits hap- 



242 OUR INTUITIVE MORAL CONVICTIONS. 

piness, and wherever there is sin, that it deserves suf- 
fering, and we are led to anticipate that the proper con- 
sequences will follow under the government of a good 
and a holy God. This conviction keeps alive, in the 
breasts of the wicked, at least an occasional fear of pun- 
ishment, even in the midst of the greatest outward pros- 
perity, and points very emphatically, if not very dis- 
tinctly, to a day of judgment and of righteous retribution. 
But as this instinct does not supply the object, it is quite 
possible that a wroug one may be presented by the baser 
fears of the heart, or by a degraded superstition, and the 
final judgment may be thought of as a petty assize, and 
the judge be regarded as gratifying a personal revenge, 
and heaven be contemplated as an elysium of sensual 
joys, and hell as a place of vulgar torture. Still the 
conviction does demand its object, and when the moral 
sense is refined, it feels that the account given in Scrip- 
ture of a judgment day, and of a heaven of light and a 
hell of darkness, is in thorough correspondence with the 
intuition which God has planted in our mental consti- 
tution. 

But in contemplating and in harmonizing such truths 
as these. Ethical science finds itself in difficulties : it 
starts questions which it cannot answer ; it raises doubts 
which it cannot dispel. We see, on the one hand, that 
God will be led to punish sin, that he " will by no 
means clear the guilty." But we have evidence, on the 
other hand, that he delights supremely in the happiness 
of his creatures. How then can God be just, and yet 
the justifier of the ungodly? Natural Ethics here con- 
duct to a yawning chasm, but show no bridge across ; 
while we are led most anxiously to long for one, and 
almost to expect that one will appear. They lead us to 
a place where we have no light, but where we are led to 



RELATION OF MORAL GOOD AND HAPPINESS. 243 

cry out for a light because of the very thickness of the 
darkness. How grateful should we be when a light is 
vouchsafed from heaven to show us that the gulf is 
spanned, and to disclose the way by which it may be 
crossed ! 



PAET THIRD. 

INTUITIVE PRINCIPLES AND THE SCIENCES. 



BOOK I. 

METAPHYSICS. 
CHAPTER I. 

THE SCIENCE DEFINED. 

The phrase Metaphysics is believed to have taken its 
rise from the title given to one of the treatises of Aris- 
totle. There is no reason to think that the name was 
given to the work referred to by the author. It does not 
even appear that it was meant to denote the nature of 
the contents. Andronicus, it is said, inscribed on the 
manuscripts, To, fjiera ra ^vo-tKo., to intimate that these 
books were to follow the physical treatises.^ In the writ- 
ings of Aristotle this department is called, not Meta- 
physics, but the First Philosophy. 

Metaphysical speculation is usually supposed, and I 
believe correctly, to have originated with the Eleatics, 
who flourished 450 or 500 years before our era. Separat- 
ing from the physiologists, that is, physical speculators, 

* On the title, see Bonitz, " Commentarius," appended to his edi- 
tion of the Metaphysics. See, also, M'Mahon's translation of the 
Metaphysics, p. 1, where Clement Alexandrinus and Philoponus are 
quoted as uuderstanding the phrase to denote the supranatural. 



METAPHYSICS. 246 

of the Ionian school, they directed their attention to the 
dicta of inward reason. Going far below what they rep- 
resented as the ilhisions of the senses, they sought to 
penetrate the mystery of being. With them all things 
were one, and this incapable of motion or of change. 

Metaphysics are treated, along with all other topics, 
by Plato, under the somewhat unfortunate name of Dia- 
lectics, which has nearly the same meaning as Specula- 
tive Philosophy has in modern times, only the former 
meant discussion in conversation, the latter discussion in 
the head, or in books. According to Plato, it was the 
science which treated of the one Real Being (jo 6V} and 
the Real Good. This one Real Being was not with him, 
as with the Eleatics, inconsistent with the existence of 
the many. It embraced the inquiry into the nature of 
tlie Good and the Beautiful, and expounded the Eternal 
Ideas which had been in or before the Divine Mind 
from all eternity, to the contemplation of which man's 
soul could rise by cogitation, because it had been 
formed in the Divine image, and in which the sensible 
universe participated, thereby having a stability in the 
midst of its mutability. 

According to Aristotle, the First Philosophy treats of 
entity so far forth as it is entity, and of quiddity or the 
nature of a thing, and of that which is universally in- 
herent, so far as it is in entity. He argues that if there 
were not some substance (ouo-t'a) other than those that 
exist in nature, then Physics would be the first science; 
but if there be an eternal and unmovable substance, then 
there must be a prior science to treat of it, and this is to 
be honored as the first and highest philosophy. But the 
inquiry into entity is, in fact, an inquiry into causes, or 
what makes a thing to be what it is ; and he shows that 
such an investigation conducts to four causes : (1.) The 



246 INTUITIVE PRINCIPLES AND THE SCIENCES. 

Formal (jrjv ova-iav kol to tl ^v civat) ; (2.) The Material 

(rrjv vXtjv kol to VTroKei/xevov) ; (3.} The Efficient (^oOev rj 
"■PXV '''V'* '"VT^crcws) ; (4.} The Final (t6 ov Ivckcv koI t6 
ayaOovy, 

From the bent of his genius, Bacon was no way ad- 
dicted to Metaphysics, but he allots it a separate and a 
most important place. He says that Physics regard what 
is wholly immersed in matter and movable, supposing 
only existence and natural necessity ; whereas Meta- 
physics regard what is more abstracted and fixed, and 
suppose also mind and idea. To be more particular, he 
represents Physics as inquiring into the efficient and 
material cause, and Metaphysics into the formal and 
final.2 

The two largest metaphysical treatises of Descartes 
are entitled Meditations on the First Philosophy/ and 
Principles of Philosophy. He says that the first part 
of philosophy is " Metaphysics, in which are contained 
the principles of knowledge, among which are found the 
explication of the principal attributes of God, of the im- 
materiality of the soul, and of all the clear and simple 
notions that are in us." He represents Philosophy as a 
tree, of which Metaphysics is the root. Physics the trunk, 
and all the other sciences the branches that grow out of 
this trunk.^ 

In the Wolfian School, which proposed to systematize 
the scattered philosophy of Leibnitz, Metaphysics was 
asked to deal with three grand topics, — God, the World, 
and the Soul, — and should aim to construct a Rational 
Theology, a Rational Physics, and a Rational Psychol- 

1 MetapTi., B. i. c. iii. sec. 1, compared with B. m. c. i., and B. v. 
c. i. sect. 3. 

® De Augmentis, iii. 4. 
8 Prin. PhU. Epis. Auth. 



METAPHYSICS. 247 

ogy. Kant takes up this view of Metaphysics, but 
labors to show that the speculative reason cannot con- 
struct any one of these thi-ee sciences. The only avail- 
able metaphysics, according to him, is a Criticism of the 
Reason, unfolding its a priori elements. He arrives at 
the conclusion that all the operations of the Speculative 
Reason are mere subjective exercises, which imply no 
objective reality, and admit of no application to things ; 
and he saves himself from scepticism by a criticism of 
the Practical Reason, which guarantees the existence oi 
God, Freedom, and Immortality.^ 

In the schools which ramified from Kant, Metaphysics 
is represented as being a systematic search after the 
Absolute, — after Absolute Being, its nature, and its 
method of development. 

And what are we to make of Metaphysics in our day ? 
It is clear that she has lost, and I suspect forever, the 
position once allowed her, when she stood at the head of 
all secular knowledge, and claimed to be equal, or all 
but equal, in rank, to Theology herself. " Time was," 
says Kant,2 " when she was the queen of all the sci- 
ences ; and if we take the will for the deed, she certainly 
deserves, so far as regards the high importance of her 
object- matter, this title of honor. Now it is the fashion 
to heap contempt and scorn upon her, and the matron 
mourns, forlorn and forsaken, like Hecuba." Some seem 
inclined to treat her very much as they treat those de 
jure sovereigns wandering over Europe, whom no country 
will take as de facto sovereigns, that is, they give her all 
outward honor, but no authority. Others are prepared 
to set aside her claims very summaril5^ The multitudes 
who set value on nothing but what can be counted in 

1 See Method enlehre, in Kr. d. r. Vern. 
^ Kritik, translated by Meiklejohn, p. xvii. 



248 INTUITIVE PRINCIPLES AND THE SCIENCES. 

money, never allow themselves to speak of metaphysics 
except with a sneer. The ever-increasing number of 
persons who read, but who are indisposed to think, com- 
plain that philosophy is not so interesting as the new 
novel, or the pictorial history, which is quite as exciting 
and quite as untrue as the novel. The physicist who has 
kept a register of the heat of the atmosphere at nine 
o'clock in the morning for the last five years, and the 
naturalist who has discovered a plant or insect distin- 
guished from all hitherto known species by an additional 
spot, cannot conceal their contempt for a department of 
inquiry which deals with objects which cannot be seen 
nor handled, weighed nor measured. 

In the face of all this scorn I boldly affirm that Meta- 
physics are not exploded, and that they never will be 
exploded. But if they are to keep or regain a place in 
this country, they must submit to lower their preten- 
sions, and secure that the performance be in some meas- 
ure equal to the profession made. In particular, they 
must confine themselves to a field which is open to hu- 
man investigation, and which can be overtaken. Look- 
ing to the philosophies to which I have just been refer- 
ring, we see that some have ascribed to it far too wide a 
province, allotting to it inquiries which in modern times 
have been happily distributed, owing to the advance in 
the division of labor, to a great number of sciences. I 
have allotted to it a defined province. It is not the 
science of all truth. It is the science of a special depart- 
ment. It is the science of First and Fundamental Truth. 
Sometimes it has to look more to the subjective side or 
knowing powers, when it may be called Gnosiology ; at 
other times to the objective side or the objects known, 
when it may be called Ontology. 



CHAPTER II. 

FUNDAMENTAL TEUTH AND EVOLUTION. 

I. 

Thkoughout this work I have been laboring to find 
out what first truths are, to ascertain their laws and 
arrange them into a system. In doing this I have care- 
fully avoided the inquiry as to how they have been pro- 
duced. To determine what they are, how they operate, 
and the objects which they look at, is a most important 
investigation independently altogether of their origin. It 
can be shown that it is only by inspecting their nature 
and exercises that we can discover whence they have 
come. It is alleged that they may have been formed 
by evolution. But we cannot inspect development di- 
rectly as it runs on through long ages. We can infer 
that there has been such a process only by a study of the 
effects which it is supposed they have produced. The 
most powerful speculative speculator of our day argues 
that our fundamental laws have been formed by evolu- 
tion. 

II. 

The school of Locke maintains that all our knowledge 
and ideas have been derived from experience. The 
school of Kant holds that we have a priori ideas ; that 
is, ideas prior to experience. Mr. Herbert Spencer has 
made a bold attempt to reconcile the two schools. 

Hitherto tlie school of Locke, specially represented 
by the two Mills, father and son, have been laboriously 



250 INTUITIVE PRINCIPLES AND THE SCIENCES. 

trying to show that all our ideas are got from the ex- 
perience of the individual. But it was felt all along by 
many that the effort was a strained one. In my earlier 
life as an author, I spent much time in exposing the 
weakness of the theory. There are cognitions and be- 
liefs which spring up spontaneously, which are enter- 
tained by all men, young and old, savage and civilized, 
and which carry in them and with them a conviction of 
necessity ; such, for example, is the belief in the princi- 
ple that every effect has a cause. All men act upon it. 
No man can be made to believe otherwise. Such are the 
convictions that honesty and benevolence are good, are 
obligatory, are commendable ; and that deceit, hypocrisy, 
and cruelty are evil, to be avoided, and condemnable. 
But it is difficult to see how people of all times and of 
all countries could be led to hold these beliefs if founded 
only on the short experience of the individual, and still 
more difficult to account for the necessity in the convic- 
tion. So this theory has been abandoned. I know no 
deep thinker who now holds it. 

m. 

The new theory is, that these truths, which profound 
thinkers regard as a priori, are derived from the experi- 
ence of the race and are formed by evolution. It is al- 
lowed, as in the former theory, that they are the result 
of experience. But the experience began in the lowest 
of the lower animals, and has come down from the monad 
through the mollusk, the mammal, and the monkey to 
man. It has become so massed and compacted that now 
it is necessary. Hence Spencer's postulate and test, that 
the belief has become a necessity of which the negative 
is inconceivable. 

This theory runs as a thread through each of Mr. 



FUNDAMENTAL TRUTH AND EVOLUTION 251 

Spencer's dozen volumes. He argues that there is an 
object which is rehited to a subject. The object affects 
the subject. With Mr. Spencer, the subject affected is 
the nervous organism. The external object affects it, and 
thus generates the experience. The internal subject, 
being the nervous system, is psychical, what is commonly 
termed mind or soul. When two things come together 
in our experience, there is a tendency, when the one 
comes up, to expect the other. " When any two psychical 
states occur in immediate succession, an effect is produced 
such that, if the first subsequently occurs, there is a cer- 
tain tendency for the second to follow it " (P.^z/cA. Vol. 
I. p. 425). When they come together frequently, the 
expectation is intensified. When they come together 
invariably, it becomes so confirmed that we cannot even 
conceive the contrary. Cause and effect have come to- 
gether invariably (how have they done so except by 
some power in the cause ?), and so we cannot conceive 
the one without the other. Thus are fashioned forms of 
intuition which are the a priori forms of Kant and the 
Germans. Being fashioned in the nervous structure, they 
go down by heredity. Every infant born is in posses- 
sion of them. Mr. Spencer thus departs and separates 
from the ordinary experience school. Every one has 
something native and necessary. The whole is the ac- 
cumulated experience of humanity. It is a process of 
the nerves and brain which are so organized as to be 
compelled to think in one particular way, and cannot 
be made to think or to act in any other way. 

IV. 

We are not requii'ed to review this theory as a whole ; 
we have to consider it merely in its bearing on funda- 
mental truth. Two questions are started : Can the pro- 



252 INTUITIVE PRINCIPLES AND THE SCIENCES. 

duction of first truths be explained by evolution ? If so, 
is their authority thereby undermined ? I begin with 
answering the second question, and this will place us 
in a position candidly to consider the first. 

If our intuitions have been developed, can we put 
trust in what they reveal ? I answer that this depends 
on the nature of the development. We can conceive a 
development incapable of establishing truth. This would 
be tlie case if the evolution were merely mechanical, a 
mere material evolution. It would also be so if the evo- 
lution were merely one of nerves and their currents, as 
Mr. Spencer maintains. 

But there may be a development, a development of 
soul, which carries truth witb it and reveals it. 

It has been shown again and again that the existence 
of evolution does not interfere with the argument for 
the existence of God. Professor Huxley declares that 
the doctrine of development does not undermine the doc- 
trine of final cause. He allows that there is as clear 
and decisive proof of apparent design in these works of 
nature, on the supposition that they are evolved in the 
course of ages, as on the supposition that they may have 
been created immediately by God. Before the doctrine 
of development was published, people generally thought 
that there is proof of design in nature. This has not 
been weakened but rather strengthened by these late dis- 
coveries of the prevalence of evolution, as we can now 
discover fitness and wisdom not only in the objects them- 
selves, say plants and animals, but in the way in which 
they have been evolved, and a connection thereby formed 
between the present and the past, between the children 
and their parents. 

Because a thing has come into existence by evolution, 
this does not alter its true nature, nor the view which 



FUNDAMENTAL TRUTH AND EVOLUTION. 253 

we take of it, nor the use to which we turn it. Be- 
cause the bread on our table was evolved from the corn 
growing on the ground, and this from a cereal which ap- 
peared in the geological ages, we do not therefore decline 
to eat it. When a hungry man sees a piece of beef he 
will not turn away from it because it has been the flesh 
of a cow which has descended from an antediluvian un- 
gulate. I believe in the reality of these mountains and 
stars even when it has been shown that they have been 
formed out of star-dust. I use the eye quite as readily as 
before, even when told by Darwin that it was formed 
thousands of ages ago from a sensitive spot in the brain. 
Aristotle's analysis of the reasoning process will remain 
true, even though it should be shown that his intellect 
was inherited from a savage or even from a brute an- 
cestor. 

The fact is that among the gifts derived from develop- 
ment ma)' be man's knowing powers, which are constantly 
enlarging. From inheritance he has got a power of in- 
telligence which makes him know things and their wide 
relations. A man of fifty has gone through a longer pro- 
cess than a boy of five, and therefore has greater knowl- 
edge and a greater capacity of knowledge. The present 
civilized race of men is more enlightened than their re- 
mote ancestors, just because there has been a longer 
process of guided evolution. 

We do not feel tlie less gratitude for gifts because they 
have come to us by a more or less lengthened passage. 
Carlyle did not value less the much-prized complimen- 
tary gift of Goethe because it came through a transport- 
ing medium. The son does nob put a lower estimate on 
his patrimony because the father earned it for hira by 
much toil and privation. 



254 INTUITIVE PRINCIPLES AND THE SCIENCES. 

V. 

We are now in a position, secondly, to inquire with- 
out fear or prejudice whether these fundamental prin- 
ciples have been evolved. 

I have shown in another work that evolution is a 
manifestation of the deeper and wider law of cause and 
effect. It is an organized causation. A number of 
agencies combine ; they act according to their prop- 
erties, and evolution takes place, seen for instance in the 
plant growing from the seed, and the animal from the 
germ. But there are limits to the sphere both of cau- 
sation and consequent development. A cause can give 
only what it has got. The stream of evolution cannot 
rise higher than its fountain. If the waters are raised 
higher, it must be by a power without and above the 
stream. 

It is a firmly established law that there is nothing in 
the effect which was not potentially in the cause. The 
organized powers develop according to the powers or 
properties which they possess. But it does look as if 
new powers have been produced in the ages, powers 
not in the original atoms or molecules from which it is 
supposed all things have come. It might be difficult 
to determine whether these new powers come in by 
direct creation, or by a providential arrangement of the 
previously created agencies. There were long geolog- 
ical ages in which there was no Life. But we have 
no proof that the inanimate can produce the animate. 
There was therefore a new power superinduced when 
life came forth. There were ages before Sensation was 
experienced, and there was a new epoch when the first 
pleasure and pain were felt. There may have been a 
long period before Instinct was added for the preserva- 



FUNDAMENTAL TRUTH AND EVOLUTION. 255 

tion of the living creature, and when this was done we 
have a farther era. Instinct acts blindly, but at the fit 
time there is Intelligence which perceives the meaning of 
the act, and knowingly uses means to accomplish ends ; 
and a new age has arrived. Morality comes in, it may 
be, at the same time, and consummates the work. It 
thus looks as if the history of our earth develops in 
epochs, corresponding to the days of Genesis. If so, we 
may reasonably conclude that these fundamental laws or 
powers of intuition, not found in the lower animals, ap- 
pear in the last day or period when man comes on the 
stage, and are in his very nature and constitution. 

Our subject does not require us to determine how far 
development extends. Enough has been advanced to 
show that evolution, be it in one continuous stream or 
with accessions from above, does not undermine or lower 
the authority of fundamental truths. 



BOOK II. 

GNOSIOLOGY. 
CHAPTER I. 

THE OKIGIN OP OUR KNOWLEDGE AND IDEAS. 

What is Science (y.ma-Ty/xT]') ? is the question put by- 
Socrates in Plato's subtle dialogue of Theatetus. But the 
word " science " has two meanings. In one sense it can 
be defined. It is knowledge arranged, correlated, or sys- 
V tematized. In this sense we speak of astronomy, geol- 
ogy, logic, and other sciences. But the word had, at 
least in Greek, another signification, and meant simply 
knowledge ; and we may suppose the question to be put, 
s/ What is Knowledge ? To this the reply must be, that 
we cannot positively define knowledge, so as to make it 
intelligible to one who did not know it otherwise. Still 
we can, by analysis, separate it from other things with 
which it is associated, — such as sensations, emotions, and 
fancies, — and make it stand out distinctly to the view of 
those who are already conscious of it. .The science which 
thus unfolds the nature of knowledge may be called Gno- 
siology, or Gnosilogy (from yvwo-ts and Adyos). I prefer 
this to Epistemology, which would signify the science of 
arranged knowledge. This science should be prosecuted 
in the same method as every other which has to do with 
facts, that is, the Inductive. 

We must now enter upon the inquiries in which Locke 
and five or six friends, who met in his chamber in Ox- 



THE ORIGIN OF OUR KNOWLEDGE AND IDEAS. 257 

ford, found themselves involved, and which issued twenty- 
years afterwards in the famous " Essay on Human Un- 
derstanding." Starting with a far different topic, they 
found themselves quickly at a stand, and it came into 
the thoughts of Locke that before entering " upon inqui- 
ries of that nature, it was necessary to examine our own 
abilities, and see what objects our understandings were 
or were not fitted to deal with." 

First. We obtain knowledge from Sensation, as Locke 
expresses it ; or from Sense-Perception, as I express it. 
Such is the knowledge we have of body, of body extended 
and resisting pressure, and of our organism as affecting 
us, or as being affected, with smells, tastes, sounds, and 
colors. 

Secondly. We obtain knowledge from Reflection, as 
Locke calls it ; from Self-Consciousness, as I express it. 
Such is the knowledge we have of self and of modes, 
actions, and affections, say as thinking, feeling, resolving. 

I am convinced that from these two sources we obtain, 
not all our knowledge, but all the knowledge we have of 
separately existing objects. We do not know, and we 
cannot, as will be shown forthwith, so much as conceive 
of, a distinctly existing thing, excepting in so far as we 
have become acquainted with it by means of sensation 
and reflection, or of materials thus derived. Here Locke 
held by a great truth, though he did not see how to limit 
it on the one hand, nor what truths required to be added 
to it on the other, 

Thiedly. There is the truth involved, and seen intui- 
tively in Body and Mind. This can scarcely be called a 
third inlet, but it is an expansion of what is contained in 
the other two, and may be expediently exposed to view 
under a third head. I am not sure whether all our 
knowledge may not be traced up to the two sources of 



258 GNOSIOLOGY. 

the external and internal sense taken with a full and 
wide meaning. However, there is more revealed in 
sense than a mere knowledge of an external thing. 
There is more in self-consciousness than a bare knowl- 
edge of self as existing. 

We know bodies as being in space and occupying 
space, as exercising power over us and over other bodies 
in particular, as resisting us and resisting each other. 
We believe in them as extended in three dimensions, and 
going out towards infinity. This implies a knowledge of 
and belief in space and the necessary qualities of space as 
unfolded in mathematics. It involves a knowledge of 
numbers, and of the relations of numbers as expanded in 
arithmetic. 

In self-consciousness we have also a variety of cogni- 
tions. We know self as having personality and personal 
identity. We know it as having power over its own 
acts and over things without us. We know it as acquir- 
ing knowledge, and as remembering, imagining, judging, 
reasoning, wishing, willing, discerning between good and 
evil. As more especially important, we discover certain 
truths to be also necessary and catholic, that is, believed 
in by all men. All these exercises go out into infinity. 

I have been seeking to unfold these, under the heads of 
primitive cognitions and beliefs, in Part Second of this 
work. They are not usually put under the heads of 
sensation and reflection ; they seem to go out and be- 
yond these inlets. Or they may be resolved, as I rather 
think they may, into intuitions involved in the exercise 
of sense-perception and self-consciousness, but requiring 
to be unfolded. In either case they are intuitive truths. 

But under whatever head we place them, they are not 
to be left vague and loose in the enunciation of them. 
They are to be rigidly tested by the three criteria of self- 



THE ORIGIN OF OUR KNOWLEDGE AND IDEAS. 259 

evidence, necessity, and catholicity, so that we may be 
sure that they are fundamental truths. 

The question of the origin of our Ideas is substantially 
the same with that of the sources of our Knowledge ; but, 
in discussing this second question, it is of all things es- 
sential to have it fixed what is meant by " idea." Plato, 
with whom the term originated as a philosophic one, 
meant those eternal patterns which have been in or be- 
fore the Divine mind from all eternity, which the works 
of nature participate in to some extent, and to the con- 
templation of which the mind of man can rise by abstrac- 
tion and philosophic meditation. Descartes meant by it 
whatever is before the mind in every sort of mental ap- 
prehension. Locke tells us that he denotes by the phrase 
" whatever is meant by phantasm, notion, species." Kant 
applied the phrase to the ideas of substance, totality of 
phenomena, and God, reached by the reason as a regula- 
tive faculty going out beyond the province of experience 
and objective reality. Hegel is forever dwelling on an 
absolute idea, which he identifies with God, and repre- 
sents it as ever unfolding itself out of nothing into being, 
subjective and objective. Using the phrase in the Pla- 
tonic sense, it is scarcely relevant to inquire into the 
origin of our ideas ; it is clear, however, that Plato rep- 
resented our recognition of eternal ideas as a high intel- 
lectual exercise, originating in the inborn power of the 
mind, and awakened by inward cogitation and reminis- 
cence. In the Kantian and Hegelian systems the idea 
is supposed to be discerned by reason ; Kant giving it no 
existence except in the mind, and Hegel giving it an ex- 
istence both objective and subjective, but identifying 
the reason with the idea, and the objective with the sub- 
jective. Using the phrase in the Cartesian and Lockian 
sense, we can inquire into the origin of our ideas. 



260 GNOSIOLOGY. 

In accordance with modern usage in the English 
tongue, it might be as well perhaps to employ the word 
" idea " to denote the reproduced image or representa- 
tion in the mind, and the abstract and general notion. 
Thus explained, it would exclude our original cognitions 
on the one hand, and also the regulative principles of 
the mind on the other. An idea, in this sense, would 
always be a reproduction in an old form, or more com- 
monly in a new form, of what has first been known. 
We first know objects, external or internal ; and then we 
may have them called up in whole or in part, magnified 
or diminished, mixed and compounded in an infinite va- 
riety of ways ; or, by an intellectual process, we may 
contemplate one of their attributes separately, or group 
them into classes. Our ideas, in this sense, are ever de- 
pendent on our cognitions; we cannot have an idea, 
either as an image or a notion, of which the materials 
have not been furnished by the various cognitive powers, 
primary and secondary. It is always to be remembered 
that by increase and decrease, by intellectual abstraction 
and generalization, our ideas may go far beyond our 
knowledge; still, as our ideas in the last resort depend 
on our knowledge, they must be drawn from the same 
quarters. When the question is put as to the origin of 
our ideas, we are thrown back on the Three Sources 
from which all our knowledge is derived. So far as our 
ideas of separately existing objects are concerned, they 
are all got ultimately from the outward and inward 
senses ; to this extent the doctrine of Locke is unassail- 
able. We cannot imagine or think of any other kind of 
existence than matter and mind, with space and time, 
though, for aught we know, there may be other sub- 
stances and beings in the universe with a far different 
nature. But then we are led by our cognitive and faith 



THE ORIGIN OF OUR KNOWLEDGE AND IDEAS. 261 

powers, intellectual and moral, to clothe the objects thus 
known with qualities and relations which cannot be per- 
ceived either by sensation or reflection. It is not by one 
or other of these, or by both combined, that I come to 
believe that space and time are infinite, that this effect 
must proceed from a cause, that this benevolent action is 
good, and that this falsehood is a sin ; nor is it by either 
or by both that I can rise to the conviction that the 
effect is forever tied to its cause, and that lying must be 
a sin in all time and in all eternity. 

The principle. Nihil est in intellectu quod non prius 
fuerit in setisu, has been ascribed to Aristotle, but most 
certainly without foundation, as the great Peripatetic 
everywhere calls in intuition in the last resort, and is 
ever coming to truth which he represents as self-evi- 
dent and necessary. The maxim has been ascribed to 
the Stoics, who, however, at the same time, placed in the 
mind a native ruling principle.^ It is assuredly not the 
principle adopted by Locke, who is so often represented 
as favoring it ; for the great English philosopher ever 
traces our ideas, not to one, but to two sources, and de- 
lights to derive many of our ideas from reflection. It is, 
however, the fundamental principle of that school in 
France and in Britain which has been called Sensational. 
There are three very flagrant oversights in the theory of 
those who derive all our ideas from sensation : First, 
there is an omission of all such ideas as we have of spirit 
and of the qualities of spirit, such as rationality, free- 
will, personality. Secondly, there is a neglect or a wrong 
account of all the further cognitive exercises of the mind 
by which it comes to apprehend such objects as infinite 
time, moral good, merit, and responsibility. TJiirdly, 
there is a denial, or at least oversight, of the mind's deep 
^ See supra, p. 35, for the view of the Stoics. 



262 GNOSIOLOGY. 

convictions as to necessary and universal truth. Sen- 
sationalism, followed out logically to its consequences, 
would represent the mind as incapable of conceiving of 
a spiritual God, or of being convinced of the indelible 
distinction between good and evil ; and makes it illegiti- 
mate to argue from the effects in the world in favor of 
the existence of a First Cause. 

Locke is ever to be distinguislied from those who derive all our 
ideas from the senses. He takes great pains to show that a vast 
number of the most important ideas which the mind of man can 
form are got from reflection on the operations of our own minds. 
His precise doctrine is that the materials of the ideas which man can 
entertain come in by two inlets, sensation and reflection; that they 
are at first perceived by the mind, and then retained ; and that they 
are subsequently turned into a great variety of new shapes by the 
faculties of discernment, comparison, abstraction, composition, and 
the power of discovering moral relations. The ideas being thus ob- 
tained, he supposes that the mind can perceive agreements and dis- 
agreements among them. In particular, it is endowed with a power 
of intuition, by which it at once perceives the agreement and dis- 
agreement of certain ideas, discovers these to be in the very nature 
of ideas, and necessary. Such being the views of Locke, they are 
as different from those of the Sensationalists, on the one hand, as 
they are from those of Descartes, Leibnitz, and Kant on the other. 
Indeed, the most careless reader cannot go through the Essay on 
Human Understanding without discovering that, if Locke has a 
strong sensational, he has also a rational side. He will allow no 
ideas to be in the mind except those which can be shown to sj^ring 
from one or other of the inlets, and yet he resolutely maintains that, 
with these ideas before it, the mind may perceive truth at once; he 
thinks that morality is capable of demonstration, and in religion he 
is decidedly rationalistic. So far, it appears to me, we can easily 
ascertain the views of Locke. It is more difficult to determine how 
far he supposed the mind to be capable of modifying or adding to 
the materials derived from the outward and inward senses. It is 
quite clear that he represents the mind as having the power to per- 
ceive and compound and divide these ideas, and discover resem- 
blances and other relations; but there are passages in which, con- 
sistently or inconsistently, he speaks of the mind having something 



THE ORIGIN OF OUR KNOWLEDGE AND IDEAS. 263 

more suggested to it, or superinducing something higher. Locke 
speaks of certain ideas being " suggested " to the mind by the senses, 
— a phraseology adopted by Reid and Stewart {Essay, ii. vii. 9) ; and 
of " relation "as " not contained in the real existence of things, but 
extraneous and superinduced " (ii. xxv. 8). 

Confining our attention to the points which are clear, I think we 
may discover, not certainly such grave errors as in the doctrines 
of the sensationalists, but still several oversights. First, he over- 
looks the cognitions and beliefs involved in the exercises with which 
the mind starts. This has arisen, to a great extent, from his attach- 
ing himself to the theory that the mind begins, not with knowledge, 
but with ideas, which are at first perceived by the mind, and then 
compared, upon which comparison it is that the mind reaches knowl- 
edge. He has never set himself to inquire what is involved in the 
sensation and reflection which give us our ideas. He takes no notice 
of intuition enabling us to look directly at the very thing, or of our 
intuition of extension, or of the cognitive self-consciousness, or of 
the beliefs gathering round space and time and the infinite. Sec- 
ondly, he has not given a distinct place and a suflScient prominence 
to the ideas got from the mind observing certain qualities and rela- 
tions in objects made known by sensation and reflection. The de- 
fects of his system, in not giving an adequate account of our idea of 
moral good, which he gets from our sensations of pleasure and pain, 
with a law of God superinduced — without so much as his trying to 
prove how we are bound, on his system, to obey that law — was per- 
ceived at an early date by British writers, who adhered to him as 
closely as possible; and Shaftesbury and Hutcheson called in a Moral 
Sense (as an addition to Locke's outward and inward sense); while 
Bishop Butler called in conscience, which he characterized as a 
" principle of reflection." Thirdly, he has not inquired what are 
the laws involved in the Intuition to which he appeals in the fourth 
book of his Essay as giving us the most certain of all our knowledge. 
Had he developed the nature of intuition, and the principles involved, 
with the same care as he has expounded the experiential element, his 
system would have been at once and effectually saved from the fear- 
ful results in which it issued in France, where his name was used to 
support doctrines which he would have repudiated with deep indig- 
nation. He is right in saying that the mind has not consciously 
before it in spontaneous action such speculative principles as that 
" Whatever is is," or moral maxims in a formalized shape; but he 
has failed to perceive that such principles as these are the rules of 



264 GNOSIOLOGY. 

our intuitions, and that they can be discovered by a reflex process of 
generalization. It is but justice to Locke to say that he acknowl- 
edges necessary truth, but it does not form a part of his general 
theory. His professed followers have abandoned it ; and sceptics 
have shown that he cannot reach it in consistency with his system. 



CHAPTER II. 

LIMITS TO OUR KNOWLEDGE, IDEAS, AND BELIEFS. 

It is instructive to find that not a few of the most 
profound philosophers with which our world has been 
honored have been prone to dwell on the limits to man's 
capacity. The truth is, it is always the smallest minds 
which are most apt to be swollen with the wind engen- 
dered by their own vanity. The intellects which have 
gone out with greatest energy to the furthest limits are 
those which feel most keenly when they strike against 
the barriers by which human thought is bounded. The 
minds which have set out on the widest excursions, and 
which have taken the boldest flights, are those that know 
best that there is a wider region lying beyond, which is 
altogether inaccessible to man. It was the peculiarly 
wise man of the Hebrews who said, " No man can find 
out the work that God maketh from the beginning to the 
end." The Greek sage by emphasis declared that, if he 
excelled others, it was only in this, that he knew noth- 
ing. It was the avowed object of the sagacious Locke to 
teach man the length of his tether, which, we may re- 
mark, those feel most who attempt to get away from it. 
Reid labored to restrain the pride of philosophy, and to 
bring men back to a common sense, in respect of which 
the peasant and philosopher are alike. It was the design 
of Kant's great work to show how little speculative rea- 
son can accomplish. In our own day we have had Sir 
W. Hamilton showing, with unsurpassed logical power, 
within what narrow bounds the thought of man is re- 
strained. 



266 GNOSIOLOGY. 

We have already in our survey gathered the materials 
for enabling us to settle the general question, in which, 
however, are several special questions which should be 
carefully separated : — 

1. What are the limits to man's power of acquiring 
knowledge ? The answer is, that he cannot know, at 
least in this world, any substance or separate existence 
other than those revealed by sense and consciousness. 
There may be, very probably there are, in the universe, 
other substances besides matter and spirit, other exist- 
ences which are not substances, as well as space and 
time, but these must ever remain unknown to us in this 
world. Again, he can never know any qualities or rela- 
tions among the objects thus revealed to the outward 
and inward sense, except in so far as we have special fac- 
ulties of knowledge ; and the number and the nature of 
these are to be ascertained by a process of induction, and 
by no other process either easier or more difficult. This 
is what has been attempted in this treatise, it may be 
supposed with only partial success in the execution, but, 
it is confidently believed, in the right method. A more 
difficult process need not be resorted to, and would con- 
duct us only into ever-thickening intricacies ; and an 
easier method is not available in the investigation of the 
facts of nature in this, nor indeed in any other depart- 
ment. After unfolding what seems to be in our primi- 
tive cognitions, I gave some account of the primitive 
faiths which gather round them, and classified the rela- 
tions which the mind can discover, and unfolded the 
moral convictions which we are led to form. Such are 
the limits to man's original capacity, of which there are 
decisive tests in self-evidence, necessity, and catholicity. 

Within these limits man has a wide field in which to 
expatiate ; a field, indeed, which he can never thor- 



LIMITS TO OUR KNOWLEDGE, IDEAS, AND BELIEFS. 267 

ouglily explore, but in which he may discover more and 
more. What he may discover, and what he may never 
be able to discover, are to be determined by the separate 
sciences, each in its ovra department. Thus, what he 
can find out of mind, of its various powers and original 
convictions, is to be determined by the various branches 
of mental science. What he can ascertain by the 
senses, aided by instruments, must be settled by the 
phj^sical sciences. 

2. The limits to man's capacity of knowledge being as- 
certained, it is easy to determine the limits to his power 
of forming ideas. The materials must all be got from 
the three sources of knowledge which have been pointed 
out. There are two classes of powers employed in en- 
larging and modifying these. The one is the imagina- 
tion, which can decrease, as when on seeing a man it can 
form the idea of a dwarf ; and increase, as when it can 
form the idea of a giant ; or separate, as when it sees a 
man it can form an image of his head ; or compound, as 
when it puts a hundred hands on man, and forms the 
idea of a Briareus. It should be observed that the im- 
agination can never go beyond the rearrangement of the 
materials supplied by the original sources of knowledge. 
The mind can further discover a number of relations 
among the objects primitively known. These I have en- 
deavored to classify. In particular, out of the concrete 
it can form innumerable abstracts, and from the singulars 
construct an indefinite number of universals. It should 
be observed that man's power of imagination and corre- 
lation extends over his moi-al convictions as well as his 
intellectual cognitions. Thus, he can clothe the hero of 
a I'omance in various kinds of moral excellence of which 
he has discovered the rudiments in himself or others, 
and perceive relations among the moral properties which 



268 GNOSIOLOGY. 

have fallen under his notice. These are the limits to 
man's capacity of forming ideas, determined, first, by his 
original powers of cognition, and, secondly, by his pow- 
ers of imagination and correlation. 

3. Our beliefs, it is evident, may go beyond our cogni- 
tions. Still there are stringent limits set to them in our 
very nature and constitution. Thus, we can never be- 
lieve anything in opposition to self-evident and necessary 
truths. There are beliefs which are in our very mental 
make and frame, and which are altogether beyond our 
voluntary power. If we except these, however, our power 
of possible belief is as wide as our capacity of forming 
ideas. If it is asked what we should believe within 
these limits, the answer is. Only what has evidence to 
plead in its behalf, what has self-evidence or mediate 
evidence. Metaphysics, with their tests, can determine 
what truths are to be received on their own authority ; 
as to the kind and amount of evidence required in deriva- 
tive truth, this can be settled only by tlie canons of the 
special departments of investigation, historical or phys- 
ical. 

But do our beliefs ever go beyond our ideas ? This is 
a very curious question, and different persons will be dis- 
posed to give different answers to it. It seems clear to 
me that every belief must be a belief in something of 
which we have some sort of conception. A belief in 
nothing would not deserve to be called a belief, and a 
belief in something of which we have no apprehension 
would be equivalent to a belief in nothing. But it will 
be urged that every man must believe in certain great 
truths regarding eternity of which he has no conception, 
and that the Christian in particular has such a truth, in 
which he firmly believes, in the doctrine of the Trinity. 
Still, I maintain that even in such a case there is an ap- 



LIMITS TO OUR KNOWLEDGE, IDEAS, AND BELIEFS. 269 

prehension or conception. Thus, in regard to infinity, 
we apprehend space or time, or God, who inhabits all 
space and time, stretching away further and further ; 
but far as we go, we apprehend and believe that there 
is and must be a space, a time, a living Being, beyond. 
Or we apprehend a spiritual God, with attributes, say 
of power and love ; and we strive to conceive of him, 
and of these perfections ; and we believe of him and his 
power and goodness that they transcend all our feeble 
attempts at comprehension. In every supposable case 
of belief we have an apprehension of some kind. A trav- 
eller tells us that he saw in Africa a monstrous animal, 
which he cannot describe so as to enable us to compre- 
hend it ; we understand the man's language, and if we 
have reason to look upon him as trustworthy we be- 
lieve his statement ; but in doing so our belief goes upon 
the apprehension of an animal different from all other 
animals. An inspired writer tells us about there being 
three persons in one Godhead ; and, having evidence of 
his inspiration, we believe him : but even here there is 
an apprehension ; there is a conception of the God of 
truth as revealing the truth. There is more : this rev- 
elation is contained in words of which we form some sort 
of apprehension : thus, we are told that Jesus Christ is 
God; that he became man ; and yet we discover that 
he is somehow or other different from God the Father. 
Thus in all our beliefs thei'e seems to be a conception of 
something, and of something real and existing ; but still 
it may be of something conceived by us as having qual- 
ities which pass beyond our comprehension, or qualities 
of which we have no comprehension. 

Some of these conceptions, with their attached beliefs, 
are those which raise up within us the feeling of the sub- 
lime, and are, of all others, the most fitted to elevate the 



270 GNOSIOLOGY. 

soul of man. Need I add that it is possible for us to be- 
lieve in truths which we cannot reconcile with other 
truths of sense or understanding? It is wrong in us, in- 
deed, to believe in a proposition unsupported by evi- 
dence; but when it is properly sustained, and when es- 
pecially it is seen to have the sanction of God, then the 
mind asserts its prerogative of belief, even when the 
truth transcends all sense, all personal, all human expe- 
rience, nay, even when it is encompassed with darkness 
and difficulties on every side. Faith feels that it is in 
one of its highest exercises when founding on the au- 
thority of God it believes, not indeed in contradictions 
(which it can never do), but in truths which it cannot 
reconcile with the appearance of things^ or with other 
truths which the reason sanctions. 



CHAPTER III. 

EELATION OF INTUITION AND EXPEEIENCE. 

We must now dive into the subject whose depths the 
great Teutonic metaphysician sought to sound ; not that 
Kant spoke much of it in the intercourse with his 
friends, but he was forever pondering it as he sat in his 
bachelor domicile, as he paced forward and backward 
in his favorite walk in the suburbs of Konigsberg, as he 
lectured to his class, or elaborated his published writ- 
ings. The general question embraces several special 
ones, which must be carefully distinguished. In seeking 
to settle these, we must always have it fixed in our 
minds in what sense we employ the word " experience; " 
for the phrase may be understood in narrower or in 
wider significations. It may be confined to the outward 
fact known or apprehended, or it may also embrace the 
inward consciousness. 

It is the aim of this whole work to explain the nature 
of intuition. In this chapter it is of all things necessary 
to explain the nature of experience. 

First, there is Personal Experience, which consists of 
what each one has passed through. There is no opposi- 
tion, even in appearance, between intuition and such an 
experience. Every exercise of intuition is an experience. 

Second, there is a Gathered Experience, or an Induc- 
tion. This consists of the experience of mankind gener- 
ally; in fact, of the aggregate of wliat man can observe. 
It is the relation of this human experience to intuition 
that I am to discuss in this chapter. The gathered experi- 



272 GNOSIOLOGY. 

ence depends on the personal experience, but it is the 
aggregate of experience that we compare or contrast with 
fundamental truth. 

No experience of man can reach a law that is neces- 
sary and must therefore be universal, that is, have no ex- 
ceptions. All human experience testifies that day has 
always been followed by night, and night by day ; but it 
is conceivable, and believable if evidence be produced, 
that there might be day not followed by night, or night 
not followed by day. Gravitation within our experience 
is a universal law, but the discoverer did not believe it to 
be ultimate, and it is quite possible that in other parts of 
the universe bodies may be connected by quite a differ- 
ent law. 

But there are laws which are necessary and universal. 
By intuition we discover this to be so in individual cases, 
but we perceive that it would be the same in every other 
like case, and we make the law universal. There is a 
necessity attached to the individual case, and this attaches 
itself to the general law, so far as the generalization is 
properly made. In many cases we are sure that we have 
properly generalized the exercises of the individual intu- 
itions, — for example, in the law of contradiction, in the 
axioms of Euclid, and in certain moral maxims, as that 
we ought to pay our debts. Now it is of great im- 
portance to draw the distinction very definitely between 
these two kinds of laws, and thereby be enabled to de- 
termine as to every law to which class it belongs. 

Let us view Experience in its relation to each of the 
Threefold Aspects of Intuition. 

II. 

1. There is the relation of Experience to Intuition 
considered as a body of Regulative Principles. Under this 



RELATION OF INTUITION AND EXPERIENCE. 273 

Aspect intuition lies in the mind, as gravitation lies in 
matter, ready to act, in fact ever acting. J. S. Mill has 
shovrn that all the lav7s of nature, say gravity or chem- 
ical affinity, are of the nature of tendencies, and they 
tend to act according to their nature. Under this view 
intuition, being native, though possibly to some extent 
hereditary, is prior to experience of every kind, but it 
tends to act as every law of nature does. There is no 
exercise of will, but it prompts and instigates to action. 
All the intuitions seek for objects, and are gratified 
when the objects are presented. Just as the function of 
the eye is to see, and light being seen is pleasant to the 
eyes, so all our cognitive, believing, and judging powers 
are gratified when the objects to which they look are 
presented. Intuition, as a regulating principle, is ever 
inclining us to gather experience, — is, indeed, the most 
powerful incitement to this. In people of strong intel- 
lectual power, there is a feeling of restraint, almost of 
disappointment, when they are not able to gratify these 
impulses. A feeling of melancholy is apt to come over 
men of genius when they find that their high ideas are 
not realized. 

Our belief as to the boundlessness of space is ever 
alluring us to explore it in earth and sea, and in the deep 
expanse of heaven ; and our belief in time without be- 
ginning and without end is ever tempting us to go back 
through all the years which human history opens to us, 
and beyond these, through all the ages which geology 
discloses, and to look forward, as far as human foresight 
and Bible prophecy may enable us, into the dim events 
of the future. Thus, too, our minds delight to dis- 
cover substances acting according to their properties, and 
plants and animals developing according to the life that 
is in them, to find species and genera in the whole or- 



274 GNOSIOLOGY. 

ganic kingdoms, to trace mathematical relations corre- 
sponding to our higher intellectual cravings among all 
the objects presenting themselves on the earth and in 
the starry heavens, and to rise from near effects to re- 
mote causes in space and time. Nor is it to be omitted 
that our moral convictions prompt us to look for, and 
when we have found Him, to look up to, a Moral Gov- 
ernor of the universe, and to anticipate of Him that He 
will be ready to support the innocent sufferer, and to 
punish the wicked. It should be added, that in experi- 
ence we are ever finding a gratifying exemplification of 
our native tendencies, and a satisfying corroboration of 
our intuitive expectations. We expect a cause to turn 
up for this mysterious occurrence ; we may be disap- 
pointed at first, but in due time it appears. We antici- 
pate that this secret deed of villany will be detected 
and exposed ; and so we are amazed for a season when 
we hear of the perpetrator flattered by the world, and 
seemingly favored in the providence of God; but our 
moral convictions are vindicated when the wicked man 
is at last caught in the net which had all along been 
weaving for him, and all his ill-gotten spoils are made 
to add to the weight of his ignominy, and to embitter his 
disgrace. 

2. There is the Relation of Experience to our Intui- 
tive Perceptions. Here the Regulative Principle comes 
forth in active exercise. It is called out by an object 
which, however, is always apprehended. In many cases 
it is an external object ; it is thus that our intuition as 
to matter is stimulated by a body presented to the senses. 
Our intuition as to personal identity is called forth by 
the consciousness of a present state with the remem- 
brance of a past. Our conviction of moral good comes 
forth on the contemplation of an act as good or evil. 



RELATION OF INTUITION AND EXPERIENCE. 275 

This object is commonly called the " Occasion," and the 
general law is laid down, that the perception is called 
up only when there is an object as the occasion. The 
two together, the inner power and the object or occa- 
sion, constitute the cause or concause which by their 
mutual action produces the effect which is the Intuitive 
Perception. 

It should be observed that every intuition looks to its 
own, its corresponding, and appropriate object ; it is a 
cognition of the object or a belief in it, or a judgment in 
regard to it. The sense-intuition is called out by a sen- 
sible object to which it looks and which it knows: the 
idea of space by an object extended ; the idea of time by 
an event in time ; our convictions as to causation by an 
object acting, or an effect produced ; our moral percep- 
tions, faiths, and decisions by good or evil acts. Thus 
closely are intuition and experience connected. Our in- 
tuitive convictions are evoked by personal experiences, 
and as they know and believe and judge in regard to 
objects they become experiences. We thus avoid one of 
the fatal errors of Kant, that our intuitions are a priori 
forms imposed on objects by the mind out of its own 
stores, whereas they all look to things and become cogni- 
tions, faiths, and judgments. We thus establish a real- 
ism in every part of our nature. 

3. There is the Relation of Experience to Generalized 
Intuitions. We have called attention to the circum- 
stance that our intuitions as Regulating Principles are 
not under the eye of consciousness. They are under- 
ground roots, which come forth as visible plants in the 
Perceptions and are put in scientific form by the defined 
Maxim. 

We must be careful to distinguish between two kinds 
of laws. One kind is obtained from the observation of 



276 GNOSIOLOGY. 

scattered facts external or internal which may have 
fallen under our notice, no matter how, through our own 
experience or that of others also. The other is formed 
from our primitive perceptions. For laws so different in 
their nature and in the manner of their being reached, 
it is desirable to have a difference of appellation or 
nomenclature. The one class may be called Intuitive, 
the other INDUCTIVE. The one is A Peiori, the other 
A Posteriori. The one is Experiential, the other 
Rational, founded on the perceived nature of things. 
The one is Necessary, the other Contingent. The 
one claims to be Axioms or Maxims, the other the 
Laws of Observation. 

The latter kinds of law may or may not hold good be- 
yond the limits of experience. We may be able to say of 
some of them, as of the law of universal gravitation, that 
they are wide as the cosmos open to human observation ; 
but we are not entitled to affirm dogmatically that they 
do, or that they must, pervade all space. It is a general 
rule that the leaves of monocotyledons have parallel 
veins; but the arum and some other plants proceeding 
from one seed-lobe have netted venation. As a rule 
mammals are viviparous, but mammals have been dis- 
covered which bring forth their young by eggs. There 
may be worlds in which substances obey very different 
magnetic laws from those to which they are subject in 
our earth. It is quite possible that, in other parts of the 
universe, there may be intelligent creatures whose ideas 
follow an order of succession very different from those 
of human beings. But it is true over all our earth, and 
must be true in all other worlds as well as in this, that 
cruelty is a sin. Present to the mind a phenomenon, 
that is, a new object or occurrence, and it insists that it 
must have had a cause, and this whether it be within or 
beyond the range of pur expeiience. 



RELATION OF INTUITION AND EXPERIENCE. 277 

Considered under this aspect, the contrast is not be- 
tween intuition and experience, but between General- 
ized Intuitions and a Gathered Experience. The 
former are at once the deeper and the higher. They pro- 
ceed on the nature of things and are immutable as long 
as the things exist. They are the truths which consti- 
tute the foundation of our knowledge and on which our 
minds fall back in the last resort. From the very earliest 
date men have been seeking to rear some central and 
abiding truths which may combine all other truths and 
act as a defence. But this cannot be done by mere 
empirical facts in which they have only " brick for 
stone " and " slime for mortar," and the end is a scat- 
tering as at Babel. However, by these eternal truths 
which we have been considering men may realize the 
idea of their youth, and build a city and a tower whose 
top may reach to heaven. 



CHAPTER IV. 

ON THE NECESSITY ATTACHED TO OUR PKIMAKY 
CONVICTIONS. 



We have seen throughout the whole of this treatise 
that a conviction of necessity attaches to all our original 
cognitions, beliefs, and judgments, both intellectual and 
moral. But we may find ourselves in hopeless perplex- 
ities, or even in a network of contradictions, unless we 
determine precisely to what it is that the necessity ad- 
heres. The proper account is, that the necessity covers 
the ground which the conviction occupies, — neither less 
nor more. "We may err, either by contracting it within 
a narrower or stretching it over a wider surface. It 
follows that if we would determine how far the necessity 
extends, we must carefully and exactly ascertain what is 
the nature of the native conviction, and what are the 
objects at which it looks. 

And this requires us to specify with precision what we 
cannot do in regard to necessary truth. A common ac- 
count is that we cannot " conceive " the contradictory of 
such truth. But the word " conceive " is ambiguous, 
and in itself means nothing more than " image " or " ap- 
prehend," that is, have a notion ; and certainly we are 
not entitled to appeal to a mere phantasm or concept as 
a test of ultimate truth. The exact account is that we 
cannot be convinced of the opposite of the intuitive con- 
viction. But our intuitive convictions may take the 



NECESSITY ATTACHED TO PRIMARY CONVICTIONS. 279 

form of cognitions, or beliefs, or judgments ; and, accord- 
ing to the nature of the intuition, that is, according as it 
is knowledge, or faith, or comparison, is the nature of 
the necessity attached. Whatever we know intuitively 
as existing, we cannot be made to know as not existing. 
Whatever we intuitively believe^ we cannot be made not 
to believe. When we intuitively discover a relation in 
objects, we cannot be made to judge that there is not a 
relation. From neglecting these distinctions, which are 
very obvious when stated, manifold errors have arisen, 
not only in the application of the test of necessity, but 
in the general account given of primary truths. When 
we take them along with us, the test of necessity admits 
of an application at once easy and certain. 

II. 

1. Beginning with our Cognitions, the conviction is 
that the object exists at the time we perceive it, and has 
the qualities we discover in it. This implies, according to 
the law of identity (in the form of non-contradiction)^ 
that it is not possible that it should not be existing, and 
that it should not be in possession of these qualities at 
the time it falls under our notice. But it does not imply 
that the object has a necessary or an eternal existence. 
It does not imply that the object must have existed in 
all other or in any other circumstances. For aught our 
conviction saj^s, the object in other positions, or with a 
different set of preexisting causes, might not have existed 
at all, or might have had a different set of qualities. 
But while the necessity does not reach further, it always 
extends as far as the perception ; thus it demands that 
body be regarded by us as extended and as resisting 
pressure, that self be looked on as capable of such quali- 
ties as thought and feeling, and that the properties of 



280 GNOSIOLOGY. 

body and mind should not be regarded as produced by 
our contemplation of them. 

2. Coming now to our original Beliefs, it has been 
shown in regard to them, that while they proceed on our 
cognitions, they go beyond them, go beyond the now 
and the present, — declaring, for instance, of time and 
space, that they must transcend our widest phantasms or 
conceptions of them, and that they are such that no space 
or time could be added to them. And as far as the con- 
viction goes, so far does the necessity extend. 

3. The necessity attached to our Judgments is in like 
manner exactly coincident with them. These imply ob- 
jects on which they are pronounced. At the same time, 
the judgment, with its adhering necessity, has a regard 
not to the objects directly, but to the relation of the ob- 
jects. These objects may be real, or they may be imag- 
inary. I may pronounce Chimborazo to be higher than 
Mont Blanc, but I may also afl&rm of a mountain 100,000 
feet high that it is higher than one 50,000 feet high. As 
to whether the objects are or are not real, this is a ques- 
tion to be settled by our cognitions and beliefs, original 
and acquired, and by inferences from them. But it is 
to be carefully observed, that even when the object is 
imaginary, the judgment proceeds on a cognition of the 
elements of the objects. Thus, having known what is 
the size of a man, we affirm of a giant, who is greater 
than a common man, that he is greater than a dwarf, who 
is smaller than ordinary humanity. Still, the necessity 
in the judgment does not of itself imply the existence of 
the objects, still less any necessary existence ; all that 
it proclaims is, that the objects might exist out of ma- 
terials which have fallen under our notice, and that the 
objects, being so and so, must have such a relation. 

In a sense, then, our primitive judgments are hypo- 



NECESSITY ATTACHED TO PRIMARY CONVICTIONS. 281 

thetical ; the objects being so must have a particular con- 
nection. There may be, or there may never have been, 
two exactly parallel lines ; what our intuitive judgnaent 
declares is, that if there be such, they can never meet. 
A similar remark may be made of every other class of 
intuitive comparisons. There may or there may not be 
a sea in the moon ; but if there be, its waters must be 
extended, and can resist pressure. There may or there 
may not be inhabitants in the planet Jupiter ; but if 
there be, they must have been created by a power com- 
petent to the operation. But it is to be borne in mind, 
that when the objects exist, the judgments, with their 
accompanying necessity, apply to them. 

And here I am tempted to say a word on a question 
of nomenclature. Throughout this treatise the phi'ase 
" intuition " has been applied to our primitive cognitions 
and primitive beliefs, as well as our primitive judgments. 
But as there is a difference between intuition as directed 
to individual objects and as directed to the comparison 
of objects, I have sometimes thought, when it is neces- 
sary to distinguish them, "• Intuitive Perceptions " might 
be the more appropriate phrase for the one, and " Intui- 
tive Reason " for the other. 

4. It holds good also of our Moral Perceptions, that 
the necessity is as wide as our conviction, but no wider. 
It implies that the good or evil is a real quality of cer- 
tain voluntary acts of ours, and this whether we view it 
or not, and independent of the view we take of it. It 
involves that certain actions are good or evil, whenever or 
wherever they are performed, in this land or other lands, 
in this world or other worlds. Rising beyond cognitions 
and beliefs, the mind can pronounce moral judgments on 
certain acts apprehended by it. These judgments do 
not imply the existence of the objects ; but the decision 



282 GNOSIOLOGY. 

will apply to the realities, if there be such. Thus, there 
may or may not be ungodliness or ingratitude in the 
planet Saturn ; but if there be such a thing, we declare 
that it must be evil and condemnable. It is to be noted 
that our moral convictions do not imply that we shall 
certainly practise the good, or that all must be morally 
good which men declare to be so. 

ni. 

As soon as our original cognition or belief assures us 
of the existence of an object with certain qualities, or as 
a judgment affirms a necessary relation, the law of iden- 
tity comes into operation, and insists on our keeping truth 
consistent with itself ; and in particular, the law of non- 
contradiction restricts us from thinking or believing the 
opposite of the truth apprehended. When we know that 
self exists, we cannot be made to think that self does 
not exist. Constrained to look on time as without limits, 
we at once deny that it can have limits. Deciding that 
every effect has a cause, we cannot be made to believe 
that it has not had a cause. We have a conviction that 
murder is a crime, and cannot be made to decide that it 
is not. We have thus necessity in two forms as a test 
of fundamental truth ; in its original or positive, and also 
in a negative form, founded on the law of non-contradic- 
tion. In no case can the conviction be wrought in us 
that what we intuitively know or believe to exist does 
not exist, or that the contradictory of a primitive judg- 
ment can possibly be true. 

It has been remarked by metaphysicians that in some 
cases we can conceive the opposite of a necessary truth, 
while in others we cannot. The account given above 
enables us to see how this should be, and determines 
whence the differences, and how far they extend. In 



NECESSITY ATTACHED TO PRIMARY CONVICTIONS. 283 

the case of our primitive cognitions and beliefs, we can 
imagine or apprehend the opposite of what we know or 
believe. We can imagine ourselves not existing at any 
given time, and that an event remembered by us did not 
occur. We can conceive, too, though often witli some 
difficulty, the contradictory of synthetic judgments a 
priori ; thus we can apprehend (though we can never 
decide or believe) that there should be a change without 
a cause. But, in the case of analytic judgments (see 
swjora, pp. 193, 194), we cannot so much as conceive them 
contradictory. The reason is obvious. The judgment 
pronounced is implied in the subject in regard to which 
the predication is made ; and the denial of the proposi- 
tion would be destructive of the notion with which we 
start. We cannot conceive of an island that it should 
not be surrounded by water, for were it not so enclosed 
it would not be an island. 

It should be noticed that the conviction of necessity 
follows primitive conviction wherever it is found. In 
what is technically called demonstrative or apodictic rea- 
soning, all the new steps are seen to be true intuitively, 
and the necessity goes through the whole process step by 
step. Thus the necessity adheres not only to the axioms 
of Euclid, but goes on to the last proposition of the last 
book. It is the same in all other sciences which are 
demonstrative, as Ethics and Logic are to a limited ex- 
tent ; the necessity adheres to whatever is drawn from 
first truths by intuitive principles. It is needful to add, 
that in mixed processes, in which there is both intuition 
and experience in the results reached, the necessity sticks 
merely to the intuitive part, and does not guarantee the 
whole. I suppose there is no doubt of the accuracy of 
the mathematical demonstrations employed by Fourier 
in his disquisitions about heat, but there are disputes as 



284 GNOSIOLOGY. 

to some of the assumptions on which his calculations pro- 
ceed. We have here a source of error. In processes into 
which intuition enters, but is only one of the elements, 
persons may allot to the whole a certainty which can be 
claimed only in behalf of one of the parts. 

One other distinction requires to be drawn under this 
head. There are cases in which primitive judgments 
are founded on primitive cognitions and beliefs, and are 
thus necessary throughout. It is thus that, proceeding 
on our primitive knowledge and faith as to time, we de- 
clare there can be no break in its flowing stream. But 
in other cases our judgment may proceed on a proposi- 
tion reached by a gathered experience. Thus, having 
found that laurel-water is poisonous, intuition insists that 
he who has drunk laurel-water has drunk poison. The 
necessity here simply is, that the conclusion follows from 
the premises ; and the conclusion itself is as certain as 
the observational premiss, neither less nor more. 



CHAPTER V. 

CRITICISM OF DISTINCTIONS 

DRAWN BY METAPHYSICIANS IN REGARD TO THE RELATION OF 
INTUITIVE REASON AND EXPERIENCE. 

These distinctions fail to express the exact truth because they do 
not proceed on the reality of things. 



The Distinction between the Understanding and the 
Reason. — Milton draws the distinction between reason " intuitive " 
and "discursive." Reid and Beattie represent Reason as having / 
two degrees : in the former, reason sees the truth at once ; in the 
other, it reaches it by a process. There is evidently ground for these 
distinctions. But the distinction I am now to examine was first 
drawn in a formal manner by Kant, and has since assumed divers 
shapes in Germany and in this country. According to Kant, the 
mind has three general intellectual powers, the Sense, the Under- 
standing (Verstand), and the Reason (Vernunft) ; the Sense giving 
us presentations or phenomena ; the Understanding binding these 
by categories; and the Reason bringing the judgments of the Under- 
standing to unity by three Ideas — of Substance, Totality of Phe- 
nomena, and Deity — which are especially the Ideas of Reason. The 
distinction was introduced among the English-speaking nations by 
Coleridge, who however modified it. "Reason," says he, " is the 
power of universal and necessary convictions, the source and sub- 
stance of truths above sense, and having their evidence in them- 
selves. Its presence is always marked by the necessity of the po- 
sitions affirmed " {Aids to Refection, i. 168). It has become an 
accepted distinction among a certain class of metaphysicians and 
divines all over Europe and the Engiish-speakinfj people of the great 
American continent. These parties commonly illustrate their views 
in some sut.h way as the following : The mind, they say, must have 
some power by which it gazes immediately on the true and the good. 
But sense, which looks only to the phenomenal and fluctuating, can- 



286 GNOSIOLOGY. 

not enable us to do so. As little can the logical understanding, 
whose province it is to generalize the phenomena of sense, mount 
into so high a sphere. We must therefore bring in a transcendental 
power — call it Reason, or Intellectual Intuition, or Faith, or Feel- 
ing — to account for the mind's capacity of discovering the universal 
and the necessary, and of gazing at once on eternal Truth and Good- 
ness, on the Infinite and the Absolute. 

Now there is great and important truth aimed at and meant to be 
set forth in this language. The speculators of France, who derive 
all our notions from sense, and those of Britain, who draw all our 
maxims from experience, are overlooking the most wondrous proper- 
ties of the soul, which has principles at once deeper and higher than 
sense, and the faculty which compounds and compares the material 
supplied by sense. And if by Reason is meant the aggregate of 
Regulative Principles, I have no objections to the phrase, and to cer- 
tain important applications of it, but then we must keep carefully in 
view the mode in which these principles operate. 

We may mark the following errors or oversights in the school re- 
ferred to : (1.) Intuitive Reason is not, properly speaking, opposed 
to Sense, but is involved in certain exercises of sense. There is 
knowledge, and this intuitive, in all sense-perception. It may be 
proper indeed to draw the distinction between the two elements 
which are indissolubly wrapt up in the one concrete act. Kant en- 
deavored to do so, but gave a perversely erroneous account when he 
represented intuition as giving to objects the form of space and time; 
whereas intuition simply enables us to discover that bodies are in 
space, and events in time. There is certainly a high intuitional 
capacity involved in every exercise of mind which takes in extension, 
or regards objects as exercising property. And then it is altogether 
wrong to represent sense as the one original source of experiential 
knowledge, which is derived from consciousness as well as from per- 
ception through the senses. (2.) It is wrong to represent Intuitive 
Reason as opposed to the Understanding. There is intuitive reason 
involved in certain exercises of tlie understanding, as when we infer 
that what is true of a given class must be true of each of the mem- 
bers of the class. Nor is it to be forgotten Jthat the understanding 
can abstract and generalize upon a great deal more than the objects 
of sense ; it can do so upon the materials supplied by consciousness, 
and by all the further convictions of the mind, such as the con- 
science. (3.) It is wrong to represent the mind as gazing immedi- 
ately and intuitively on the true or the good, upon the necessary or 



CRITICISM OF DISTINCTIONS. 287 

the universal. It can indeed rise to the conception of these, but, in 
order to its doing so, it has to engage in abstraction and generaliza- 
tion, which' makes the truth gained no longer a truth of pure reason, 
but of reason and understanding combined. It is not consistent with 
the natural history of the mind to represent it as at once rising to 
the contemplation of some ideal of the fair and good, which it is able 
to look at when the spirit is not agitated by passion or bedimmed by 
earthliness. We are undoubtedly led by native taste to admire the 
beautiful, but it is when embodied in a lovely object. We are con- 
strained, in spite of a rebellious will, to approve of the good, but it 
is when a good action, or rather a good being performing a good 
action, is presented to the mind. The general ideas of the true, the 
fair, and the good, do not spring up intuitively in the mind, but are 
fashioned out of intuitive elements by those addicted to reflection. 
(4.) It is preposterously wrong to suppose that the mind can employ 
intuitive convictions in philosophic or religious speculations without 
any associated exercise of the logical understanding. Not being im- 
mediately conscious of the Regulative Principles of the mind, we 
cannot employ them in discussion till we have first inquired into their 
nature by induction, and embodied their rule in a clear definition or 
a precise axiom. 

II. 

Distinction between " A Priori " and " A Posteriori " 
Principles. — Prior to the time of David Hume, the phrase " k 
priori " was applied to the procedure from principle to consequent, 
and from cause to effect, using the word cause in a wider and looser 
sense than in these times ; while the phrase " h posteriori " was em- 
ployed to characterize the procedure from consequent to antecedent, 
or from effect to cause. Cudworth's language is, " The abstract uni- 
versal rationes, ' reasons,' are that higher station of the mind, from 
whence, looking down upon individual things, it hath a commanding 
view of them, and, as it were, * h priori ' comprehends or knows 
them" (Fmmul. Mor. iii. iii. 2). Since the publication of Hume's 
philosophic works, and more especially since the Krilik of Pure 
Reason came to have such an extensive influence, " k priori " denotes 
whatever is supposed to be in the mind prior to experience; and "k 
posteriori " whatever has been acquired by experience. The dis- 
tinction thus indicated and designated may be admitted without 
allowing that it probes the subject to its depths, and certainly with- 
out admitting all the views usually associated with it. Even in re- 
gard to knowledge acquired by experience, I maintain that, prior to 



288 GNOSIOLOGY. 

its acquisition, the mind has the power of acquiring it. The bodily 
frame has certainly the organs of sense prior to seeing, hearing, tast- 
ing, touching, or smelling. The mind has certainly the capacity of 
perception before it actually observes any external object, and the 
power of comparison before it can notice relations. And, in ac- 
knowledging the distinction, we must ever protest against the idea 
that any universal or necessary truth can be discerned by the mind 
without a process of k posteriori induction and arrangement. So 
far as the phrase is applied to general maxims, it should be on 
the understanding that they have been drawn by a logical process 
out of the individual k priori convictions. 

Closely allied to the question of k priori truth is the question, Can 
there be an h priori science? This is a topic which will come more 
fully before us in some of the chapters of the next book. There is a 
sense in which certain sciences are k priori, that is, the principles of 
them are in the constitution of the mind, and are ready to manifest 
themselves in individual acts. In another sense there can be no k 
priori science, for science employs general principles, and there are 
no such principles known k priori. But there are sciences the 
ground pi'inciples of which are not the generalizations of a gathered 
experience, but of the necessary decisions of the mind, and these 
sciences may be called k priori with perfect propriety, provided al- 
ways that it be understood that, while the general law is in the mind 
prior to its manifestation, it is discovered by us only through the 
generalization of the individual exercises. 



Distinction between Form and Matter. — This phrase- 
ology was introduced by Aristotle, who represented everything as 
having in itself both matter (J/Aij) and form (etSos). It had a new 
signification given to it by Kant, who supposes that the mind sup- 
plies from its own furniture a form to impose on the matter presented 
from without. The form thus corresponds to the k priori element, 
and the matter to the k posteriori. But the view thus given of the 
relation in which the knowing mind stands to the known object is 
altogether a mistaken one. It supposes that the mind in cognition 
adds an element from its own resources, whereas it is simply so con- 
stituted as to know what is in the object. This doctrine needs only 
to be carried out consequentially to sap the foundations of all knowl- 
edge, — for if the mind may contribute from its own stores one ele- 
ment, why not another? why not all the elements ? In fact, Kant 



CRITICISM OF DISTINCTIONS. 289 

did, by this distinction, open the way to all those later speculations 
which represent the whole universe of being as an ideal construction. 
There can, I think, be no impropriety in speaking of the original 
principles of the mind as forms or rules, but they are forms merely, 
as are the rules of grammar, which do not add anything to correct 
speaking and writing, but are merely the expression of the laws 
which they follow. As to the word " matter," it has either no mean- 
ing in such an application, or a meaning of a misleading character. 



Distinction between Subjective and Objective. — The 
word " subject " has a diversity of meaning in the English language. 
In logic, it denotes the term of which predication is made; in com- 
mon discourse, it means the topic about which affirmations are made ; 
and in metaphysics, the mind contemplating an object. The term 
" object," too, is not without its ambiguity. Sometimes it stands 
for a thing contemplated by the mind, and sometimes for a thing 
considered in itself, and often it denotes the aim or end which the 
mind has in any of its pursuits. I am afraid it -v^ill be impossible, in 
common discourse, to dej^rive the phrases of any one of these various 
significations. The adjectives " subjective " and " objective " have 
not had such a variety of meaning, and the nouns " subject " and 
"object," when used together, in philosophic discussion, should be 
limited so as to be exactly coincident with them. They should, in 
my opinion, never be used except as correlative phrases, the terms 
" subject " and " subjective " being employed to designate, not the 
mind in itself, but the mind as contemplating a thing; and the terms 
" object " and " objective " to denote, not a thing in itself, but a 
thing as contemplated by the mind. It is clear that if the phrases 
were employed in this sense when used at the same time, we should 
be saved an immense amount of word-warfare, in which subject and 
object, subjective and objective, act so prominent a part. We should 
be prevented from speaking, as is so often done, of the mind as sub- 
ject or subjective, except when it is looking at something; or of the 
thing as an object or objective, except when it is contemplated by a 
thinking mind. We would also know at once what is meant when it 
is said that the subject implies the object, and the object the subject. 
It does not mean that the existence of mind implies an external thing 
to be contemplated, or that a thing, as such, implies a mind to con- 
sider it; it signifies simply that the one implies the other, as the hus- 



290 GNOSIOLOGY. 

band implies tbe wife, and the wife a husband, from which we can- 
not argue that every man must have a wife and every woman a 
husband, but merely that when the man is a husband he must have 
a wife, and when the woman is a wife she must have a husband. 
The subject implies the objective merely in the sense that when the 
mind is contemplating a thing, it must be contemplating it; and that 
when a thing is contemplated, it must be contemplated by a con- 
templative mind. 

With a large school of metaphysicians and divines, the words 
" subjective " and " objective " are used in a Kantian sense, and 
are made, without the persons employing them being aware of it, to 
bring in the whole peculiarities of the critical philosophy. In the 
philosophy which has germinated from Kant, the subject mind is sup- 
posed to have a formative power, and the object thing is supposed to 
be a thing, or phenomenon, plus a shape or a color given it by the 
mind. Pioceeding on this view, the phrase " subjective " comes to 
express that which is contributed by the mind in cognition. Thus, 
by a juggling use of these phrases, persons are being involved, with- 
out their having the least suspicion of it, in a philosophy which 
makes it impossible for us ever to know things except under aspects 
twisted and distorted no man can tell how far from the reality. We 
can be saved from this only by using them as correlatives, and in- 
sisting, when we do so, that the subjective mind is so constituted as 
to know the object as it is, under the aspects presented. 



Logical ant> Cheonological Order of Ideas. — Sir W. 

Hamilton quotes a saying of Patricius, " Cognitio omnis a mente 
primam originem, a sensibus exordium habet primum." The distinc- 
tion is deep in Kant, and has been fully and skilfully elaborated by 
M. Cousin. It is said that there are ever two factors in the forma- 
tion of our a priori ideas, reason and experience; and that logically 
reason is first, whereas chronologically experience comes first. The 
distinction is not clearly nor happily drawn by such phraseology. For 
it is difficult to understand what is meant by " origin " as distinguished 
from " beginning ; " and what is meant by " logical " in such an appli- 
cation: it cannot mean, according to the rules of formal logic it must 
mean, according to reason; and then comes in the important fact 
that reason and experience are not, properly speaking, opposed. 
The distinction, however, points to a truth, inasmuch as our intui- 
tions, as mental faculties, laws, or tendencies, are in the mind prior 



CRITICISM OF DISTINCTIONS. 291 

to the exercise of them. There is a difficulty, however, in appre- 
hending what is meant by the logical or reason element being first, 
but not chronologically. The intuition as a law is in the mind prior, 
chronologically, to the experience of it. The individual exhibition 
of the conviction and the experience of it come chronologically to- 
gether. It is true, however, in the fullest sense, that an experience 
is necessary in order to our being able to present the necessary con- 
viction in the form of an abstract definition or general maxim. This 
distinction connects itself with another, which I am now to examine. 



Distinction between Reason as the Cause, and Sense 
AND Experience as the Occasion. — Cudworth refers to ideas 
of a high kind, which he admits are " most commonly excited and 
awakened occasionally from the appulse of outward objects knocking 
at the door of the senses," and complains of men not distinguishing 
" betwixt the outward occasion, or invitation, of these cogitations, 
and the immediate active or productive cause of them " (Immut. 
Mor, IV. ii. 2). It is allowed that, apart from sense and experience, 
the mind cannot have any ideas: still, it is not experience which pro- 
duces our necessary ideas; it is merely the occasion of them, the true 
cause being the reason. Thus, without an exercise of sense, there 
could be no idea of space in the mind ; but then the operation is 
merely the occasion on which the idea of space is produced by an 
inherent mental energy. Aloof from a special event, there could be 
no idea of time ; but then it is affirmed that upon an event becom- 
ing apprehended, the idea of time, already potentially in the mind, 
is ready to spring up. Without the observation of contiguous con- 
currences, there could be no idea of cause; but on such being pre- 
sented, the mind is found to be already in possession of an idea of 
cause by which to bind them in a necessary connection. Till some 
human action is presented, there could be no idea of moral good; but 
on a benevolent action being apprehended, the idea of moral good 
is ready to spring up. 

There is important truth which this account is intended to ex- 
press, but it does not bring it out accurately. It is not so easy to 
settle precisely the difference between cause and occasion: the oc- 
casion is, in fact, one of the elements of the unconditional cause, or 
rather, concause, which produces the effect. In regard to the original 
faculty or law of the mind, it is undoubtedly the main element of 
the complex cause which issues in a spontaneous intuitive conviction. 



292 GNOSIOLOGY. 

But there is need of a concurrence of circumstances in order to this 
faculty operating. But instead of confusedly binding all these up in 
the one expression " occasion," it is better to spread them out indi- 
vidually, when it will be found that each acts in its own way. Thus 
we should show that an action of the organism is needful to call our 
intuition of sense-perception into exercise. We should show, too, 
that an apprehension of an object or objects is needed, in order to 
call into action our intuitions as to the infinity of time, and eternal 
relations, and moral good ; and then it may be seen that this apprehen- 
sion may not have been got from sense, and that in our primary 
cognition of the object there may have been intuition ; thus, it is 
because we intuitively know every object as having being, that we 
declare its identity of being at different times. Again, in respect to 
the generalized maxim, or notion, the account is fitted to leave a 
very erroneous impression, for it makes it appear as if it were upon 
the occasion of the presentation of a material object that there 
springs up the abstract idea of space; and of an event becoming 
known, that there arises the idea of time ; or of a succession of 
events being apprehended, that the mind forms an idea of cause. It 
is all true that there must be experience in order to the construction 
of the abstract or general notion, but the notion is formed, after all, 
by the ordinary process of abstraction and generalization. 



BOOK m. 

ONTOLOGY. 

CHAPTER I. 

KNOWING AND BEING. 

These are topics which the subtle Greek mind de- 
lighted to discuss from the time that reflective thought 
was first awakened within it ; that is, from at least five 
hundred years before the Christian era. I confess I 
should like to have been present when they were handled 
on that morning when Socrates, as yet little more than a 
boy, met the aged Parmenides, so venerable with his 
noble aspect and hoary locks, and Zeno, tall and grace- 
ful, and in the vigor of his manhood, in the house of 
Pythodorus, in the Ceramicus, beyond the walls of 
Athens.^ At the same time, I fear that, after all, I 
could have got little more than a glimpse of the meaning 
of the interlocutors. It is clear that even Socrates him- 
self is not sure whether he is listening to solid argument, 
or losing himself among verbal disquisitions and dialectic 
sophistries. And who will venture to make intelligible 
to a modern mind — even to a Teutonic mind — the ar- 
guments by which Parmenides and Zeno prove that 
Being is One, and the impossibility of Non-Being ; or 
translate with a meaning, into any other tongue, the sub- 
tleties of those Dialogues, such as Parmenides and the 
Sophist, in which Plato makes his speakers discourse of 
* See the opening of the Parmenides of Plato. 



294 ONTOLOGY. 

the One and of ttie Existing? The grand error of all 
these disputations arises from those who conduct them 
imagining that pure truth lies at the bottom of the well, 
whereas it is at the surface ; and in going past the pure 
waters at the top, they have only gone down into mud 
and stirred up mire. We are knowing^ and knowing 
^ being, at every waking hour of our existence, and all 
that the philosopher can do is to observe them, to sepa- 
rate each from the other, and from all with which it is 
associated, and to give it a right expression. But the 
ancient Greeks, followed by modern metaphysicians, im- 
agined that they could do more, and so have done infi- 
nitely less. They have tried to get a more solid founda- 
tion for what rests on itself, and so have made that 
insecure which is felt to be stable. They have labored 
to make that clearer which is already clear, and have 
thus darkened the subject by assertions which have no 
meaning. They have explained what might be used to 
explain other truths, but which itself neither requires 
nor admits of explanation, and so have only landed and 
lost themselves in distinctions which proceed on no dif- 
ferences in the nature of things, and in mysteries of 
their own creation. 

Knowing, in the concrete, is a perpetual mental exer- 
cise, ever under the eye of consciousness ; and we can by 
an intellectual act separate it from its object, and con- 
template it in the abstract. In all acts of knowledge we 
know Being in the concrete ; that is, we know things as 
existing, and we can separate in thought the thing from 
our knowledge of it, and the thing as existing from all 
else which we may know about the thing. The science 
which treats of Being, or Existence, is Ontology. If we 
define Ontology as the science of what we know of 
things intuitively, we are giving it a precise field which 



KNOWING AND BEING. 296 

can be taken in from the waste and cultivated. Gnosiol- 
ogy and Ontology may be treated to a great extent to- 
gether in Metaphysics. Still they can be distinguished, 
and the distinction between them should be steadily kept 
in view. The one seeks to find what are our original 
powers, the other to determine what we know of things 
by these powers. 

In order to reach this second end, we must go over, 
one by one, the various classes of objects known by our 
intuitive powers ; but this not, as in Gnosiology, to de- 
termine what the power is, but what is the object which 
it looks at. I have been seeking to accomplish the one 
as well as the other of these all throughout this treatise. 
By simple cognitive or presentative powers (as Hamil- 
ton calls them), we know objects in the singular and in 
the concrete ; by consciousness we know self as having 
being, and capable of thought and feeling ; by percep- 
tion we know body as extended and resisting pressure ; 
and by both we know self and not-self as having an ex- 
istence independent of the mind contemplating them. 
By the reproductive powers we are led to believe in the 
past event recalled by memory as real, that is, as having 
occurred in time past ; and round space, known in the 
concrete in perception, and time, known with Hke event 
in reminiscence, there gather a number of beliefs which 
can be ascertained and expressed. Among the objects 
thus known or believed in, — and, it should be added, 
imagined out of the materials supplied by the cognitive 
and reproductive powers, — the mind can discern neces- 
sary relations, that is, arising from the very nature of the 
objects. Tiie mind, too, is led to know and believe in a 
moral excellence in the voluntary acts of intelligent be- 
ings, and to discover the bearings and relations of moral 
good and evil. 



296 ONTOLOGY. 

Such a survey as this enables us to determine what are 
the kinds of reality which the mind is able to discover. 
In sense-perception and consciousness it is a real thing, 
known as having certain qualities. In our beliefs, too, 
we look to a real thing having attributes. We believe, 
we must believe, space and time to have an existence, 
not as mere forms of thought, but altogether independent 
of the contemplative mind. Our judgments may or may 
not look to a reality, for we may discover relations 
among imaginary as well as among actual objects. But 
when the objects are real the relations discovered are 
also real. The reality discovered by the moral power 
lies in a quality of certain voluntary acts performed by 
persons possessed of conscience and freewill. We thus 
see how such an inspection settles for us not only that 
there is a reality, but what is the sort of reality ; 
whether a present or an absent reality, whether an inde- 
pendent reality or a reality in objects. Thus we main- 
tain that abstract and general notions have a reality 
when the objects from which they are drawn are real ; 
but we are not to understand, as Plato's language would 
lead us to believe, that they have a reality independent 
in some intelligible world. The relations of quantity 
treated of in mathematics have a reality, but it is only 
in space and time, and in bodies as occupying space and 
existing in time. Cause and effect have a i-eality inde- 
pendent of the mind which observes them ; but this is, 
after all, in the substances which act and are acted on. 
Moral good and sin are certainly both real, but their ac- 
tuality is in the dispositions of responsible beings. 

I flatter myself that by the account given in this 
treatise, I have avoided the error of those who would 
dissociate the native laws of the mind from things. 
Some give a priori principles a formative power in the 




KNOWING AND BEING. 297 

mind, and make them add to the objects, or even create 
the objects. Now, they are no doubt in the mind, but 
they are there as powers to enable us to apprehend ob- 
jects. They are in our very constitution as laws, but they 
are laws in relation to things. They exist as tendencies 
prior to operation, but when they come into action it 
is as cognitions, beliefs, and judgments in regard to 
objects. 

But what can metaphysical science do in the way of 
establishing the reality of objects ? Truly it can do 
very little ; and by going beyond its own narrow terri- 
tory, by trying, for instance, to prove first truths, or get 
a ground for original principles, it has often exposed it- 
self to most damagmg assaults. Still it can do some- 
thing if it keep within its own impregnable fortress. It 
can show what our original principles are, how they 
work, and what they say ; and all this surely is matter 
of great speculative importance, independent of the ques- 
tion as to whether we can confide in their depositions. 
In particular, it can unfold the process by which the mind 
attains its convictions, and show how they stand related 
to things. Thus — in consciousness we have the object 
— that is, self immediately under inspection, so that we 
might as well deny the existence of the cognitive con- 
viction as of the thing apprehended. Again, in sense- 
perception we have an immediate knowledge of an 
extended object, and this ever coexisting with the im- 
mediate knowledge of self, so that we may as well deny 
self as the external object perceived by the conscious 
self. Then our intuitive beliefs are not independent 
of our knowledge of objects ; they all proceed on a cog- 
nition, or, as derived from it, an apprehension of objects. 
It is in contemplating the objects known or conceived 
that we believe them to have qualities which do not fall 



298 ONTOLOGY. 

under our immediate inspection ; and, if we deny our in- 
tuitive beliefs, it must be on principles which would un- 
dermine our intuitive knowledge. Again : our intuitive 
judgments all proceed on our cognitions and beliefs ; on 
comparing objects known or believed in, we perceive 
them to have certain necessary relations involved in 
their very nature. Our original convictions thus consti- 
tute an organic whole, springing from immediate knowl- 
edge as the root, and rising into comparisons and faiths, 
as the branches and leaves. 

As we thus go round about the tower of human knowl- 
edge, we find it a compact structure, consolidated from 
base to summit. He who would attack any part must 
attack the whole, and he who would attack the whole 
will find every part strengthening it. The foundation is 
sure, being well laid ; the building is also sure, as being 
firmly built upon it ; and he who would assail the super- 
structure will find the basis bearing it up throughout. 

The objections which may be advanced against the 
reality of things will be answered in the chapters which 
follow. 



CHAPTER II. 

IDEALISM. 

I. 

Theee are associations in the mind joined with our 
primitive intellectual and moral exercises. The mivth is 
not in the merry peal, nor the melancholy in the fune- 
real toll of the bell ; nor is the music in the flute or organ, 
but in the soul which breathes and beats and rings in har- 
mony with the external movements. The view differs 
according to the point from which men take it, according 
to men's natural or acquired temperaments, tastes, and 
characters, and according to the circumstances in which 
they are placed. How different the estimate which is 
formed of a neighbor's character, according as he who 
judges is swayed by kindness or malignity, by charity or 
suspicion ! The scene varies according to the humor in 
which we happen to be, quite as much as it changes 
according to the light or atmosphere in which we survey 
it. Hope gladdens everything as if it were seen under 
an Italian sky, whereas disappointment wraps it in mist 
and cloud. Joy steeps the whole landscape in its own 
gay colors, whereas sorrow wraps it as in the sable dress 
of mourning. Do not such facts, known to all observ- 
ers of human nature, and dwelt on by poets as being 
largely their stock-in-trade, prove that in all our ideas, 
views, notions, opinions, there is a subjective element no 
less prominent and potent than the objective ? And if 
there be, what limits are we to set to it ? Is our meta- 
physical philosophy agreed with itself on this subject? 



300 ONTOLOGY. 

Or, with all its refinements, can it draw a decided line 
which will forever separate the one from the other? 

1. All knowledge through the senses is accompanied 
with an organic feeling, that is, a sensation. Our imme- 
diate acquaintance with the external world is always 
through the organism, and is therefore associated and 
combined with organic affections pleasing or displeasing. 
Certain sounds are felt to be harsh or grating ; others are 
relished as being sweet or melodious or harmonious. 
Some colors, in themselves or in their associations, are 
felt to be glaring or discordant, while others are enjoyed 
as being agreeable or exciting. In short, every sense- 
perception is accompanied with a sensation, the percep- 
tion being the knowledge, and the sensation the bodily 
affection felt by the conscious mind as present in the 
organism. He who is no philosopher finds little diffi- 
culty in distinguishing the two in practice ; and it ought 
not to be difficult for the man who is a philosopher to 
distinguish the two in theory. Every man can distin- 
guish the sugar in itself from the sweet flavor which we 
have in our mouth when we taste it, or the tooth and 
gum from the toothache which is wrenching them ; and 
the metaphysician is only giving a philosophic expression 
to a natural difference when he distinguishes between 
sensation and perception. 

2. Certain mental representations are accompanied 
with emotion. Thus the apprehension of evil as about 
to come on us, or those whom we love, raises up fear ; the 
contemplation of good, on the other hand, as likely to 
accrue to us, or those in whom we feel an interest, excites 
hope. This is only one example of the kind of emotions 
which attach themselves to all mental pictures of objects, 
as having brought, or as now bringing, or as likely to 
bring, pleasure or pain, or any other sort of good or evil, 



IDEALISM. 301 

and which steep the objects in their own fluid, and im- 
part to them their peculiar hue. Hence the gloom cast 
over scenes fair enough in themselves, as by a dark 
shadow the effect of the interposition of a gloomy self ob- 
structing the light ; hence the splendor poured over per- 
haps the very same scenes at other times, as by light 
streaming through our feelings, as through stained glass 
or irradiated clouds. Hence the pleasure we feel in 
certain contemplations, and the pain called forth _ by 
others. Hence the fear that depresses, that arrests all 
energy, and at last sinks its victim ; hence the hope 
which buoys up, which cheers and leads to deeds of dar- 
ing and of heroism. But while the two are blended in 
one mental affection in the mind, it is not difficult, after 
all, to distinguish between the object known and the 
accompanying emotion ; between the trumpet sounding 
and the martial spirit excited by it ; between the canvas 
and oil of Titian and the feeling which his ascending 
Mary raises within us, glowing and attractive as the 
splendors of the dying day ; between our friend as he 
is in himself and the deep and tender regard which we 
must entertain towards him. 

3. Certain ideas are associated with other ideas which 
raise emotions. It does not concern us at present to ex- 
plain the nature of the laws which govern the succes- 
sion of our ideas. It is certain that ideas which have 
at any time been together in our mind, either simultane- 
ously or successively, in a concrete or complex state, will 
tend to call forth each other ; and an idea which has no 
emotion attached may come notwithstanding to raise up 
feeling through the idea with which it is associated, and 
which never can come without sentiment. Thermopylae, 
Bannockburn, and Waterloo look uninteresting enough 
places to the eye, and to those who may be ignorant of 



302 ONTOLOGY. 

the scenes transacted there ; but the spots and the very 
names stir up feeling like a war-trumpet in the breasts 
of all who know that freedom was there delivered from 
menacing tyranny. Thus it is that the buds and blos- 
soms of spring, and the prattle of boys and girls, call 
forth a hope as fresh and lively as they themselves are. 
Thus it is that the leaves of autumn, gorgeous though 
they be in coloring, and the graveyard where our fore- 
fathers sleep, clothed though it be all over with green 
grass, incline to musing and to sadness. But neither is 
it very difficult to distinguish between an apprehension 
or representation and its associated feeling, to separate 
between the primrose and the spring emotion which 
bursts forth on the contemplation of it, between the 
grave of a sister and the sorrowful tenderness which it 
evokes. 

4. The mind of the mature man cannot look on any one 
object without viewing it in a number of relations. A 
house presented to an infant may be nothing but a col- 
ored surface with a certain outline ; to the mature man 
it is known as a house, possibly with a loved dweller 
within. An apple falling to the ground is known intui- 
tively simply as an object in motion ; but by the edu- 
cated man it is known as a vegetable fruit falling to the 
ground in obedience to what seems a universal law of 
matter. Does not the mind, in such cases, add to the ob- 
ject relations imposed by itself ? To this I answer, that 
all that the mind does is, to add to its original a further 
knowledge, a knowledge of relations discovered in the 
objects themselves. The object before us is not merely 
a colored shape ; it is a house, and as a house we are en- 
titled to regard it. The apple falling to the ground is 
in fact a fruit obeying a power of gravitation. The let- 
ters of a book are to the infant mere black strokes ; to 



IDEALISM. 803 

the child learning to read they are figures, signs of 
sound ; to the grown man or woman they are signs of 
thoughts or feelings, addressed by a writer to a reader : 
but the truth is, the letters are real things under all 
these aspects ; real strokes, real signs of sounds and 
sense. So far as we proceed accurately, according to the 
laws of thought using experience, and are employed in 
discovering the actual relations of things, the conceptions 
reached imply a reality quite as much as the intuitions 
with which the mind starts. 

I am not prepared to say that these are all, but they 
are the more important, of the natural influences which 
operate to color or enlarge our knowledge. The Author 
of our nature certainly means us to add to our knowledge 
by continual observation, and to graft the acquired on 
the original stock ; and he has superinduced attached 
sensations, and made the very laws of our nature to call 
in associated thoughts and feelings in order to intensify 
and elevate our enjoyment, or in some cases to be a prog- 
nostic of evil which should ever be associated with of- 
fence and disgust. So far as music gives us more plea- 
sure than wire vibrations, so far as a Swiss valley, 
guarded by IMont Blanc, or the Matterhorn, or the Jung- 
frau, is finer than an accumulation of grass, trees, stones, 
and snow ; so far as the spot where a great and good 
man was born is more stimulating than the uninteresting 
hut, which is all the bodily sense perceives, — we owe it 
to the beneficence of God, who has made us sensitive as 
well as cognitive beings. So far as we are led to shrink 
from baser scenes, it is by a provision which is intended 
to keep us back from what might issue in pain or in sin. 
It should be added that, while this is no doubt the origi- 
nal intent of these peculiarities of our constitution, they 
may, in the voluntary and sinful abuse of them, become 



304 ONTOLOGY. 

a seduction to evil and a scourge to inflict the keenest 
misery. They may lead man, through a misgoverned 
imagination, to paint in glowing colors a fictitious object, 
and then pursue it, when he 

" Sees full before him, gliding without tread, 
An image with a glory round its head ; 
This shade he worships for its golden hues, 
And makes (not knowing) that which he pursues." 

Thus it is that the mind irradiates with a romantic tinge 
objects unworthy in themselves, and then goes on to 
love them and delight in them. Man may thus come, 
too, to be haunted by spectres of his own creation, to be 
mocked by his own shadow seen across some of the 
deeper gorges of the earth, and striding opposite as he 
himself moves. Thus it is that there are to us, for our 
gratification, glowing colors, burnishing what are in 
themselves only mists and damps, and spanning the 
heavens above us with a bow of hope, assuring us that 
these waters which threaten will not overwhelm us ; 
thus it is, too, that there are hideous mock suns person- 
ating the very brightest light which God has planted in 
these heavens. Still the man of good sense and of sim- 
ple honesty will find no difficulty in distinguishing prac- 
tically between things which I have been seeking in this 
chapter to separate theoretically. 

II. 

Our imaginations in their wide excursions and our 
fancies in their cameo forms have a large field allotted 
to them in our nature, and this is to be carefully culti- 
vated. They have a territory rich and fertile in poetry, 
in romance, in art, and in these they have the privilege of 
expatiating at pleasure. The ideal spirit is an elevated 
and an elevating one. There are elements in human 



IDEALISM. 306 

nature fitted — I believe intended — to produce and foster 
it. It is meant that sensations sliould warm our knowl- 
edge into a glow, that feelings should buoy up our intel- 
lectual notions into a higher region than they themselves 
can reach, and that our colder apprehensions should be 
linked to others which are more fervent. The glory 
thus cast around objects, commonplace enough it may be 
in thenoselves, renders them more lovable and beloved. 
The melody which the ear gives to the sound increases 
our interest in the thought or sentiment uttered, and 
turns, if I may so speak, prose into poetry. The ideal 
spirit may be an incentive to glorious enterprise ; it 
steeps the country before us — mountain, vale, sea, and 
island — in sunlight, and thus allures us to explore it. 
It is especially elevating when it takes a moral direction, 
when it places before us a high model to which we ever 
look, and to which we would become assimilated, and 
sets us forth amidst sacrifices made, to accomplish some 
high end, reaching forth far in time or into eternity. 
Still, it is of the utmost moment that the person steadily 
draw the distinction between our knowledge of the ob- 
ject and the light in which we view it. 

Still idealism is to be confined within very rigid limits. 
It has no place allowed it in science. Newton did not 
seek to construct the law of gravitation out of his own 
brain, nor to impart additions to it on the pretence of 
improving and beautifying it. What he did was to dis- 
cover it and detect its exact nature. I am aiming 
throughout this whole treatise to show that idealism is 
not entitled to have a place in metaphysics any more 
than in science. 

I cannot but admire some of the grand cosmogonies 
which have been drawn out in Eastern tlieosophies, and 
by the genius of such men as Plato and Leibnitz, but all 



306 ONTOLOGY. 

the while I feel that they have nothing solid to rest on, 

and I find that the actual world is more wondrous far 

than the ideal ones. So I am sure that the realistic 

method, if carefully prosecuted, will exhibit to us a far 

grander philosophy than human speculation has ever 

done. 

III. 

While much may be said in praise of the ideal spirit, 
I can bestow no commendation on idealism as a philo- 
sophic system, that is, the system which would raise our 
associated sentiments to the rank of cognitions. I allow 
that it is vastly superior to sensationalism, which acknowl- 
edges only the visible and the tangible ; but, in making 
this allowance, it is proper to add that, on the principle 
that extremes meet, it sometimes happens that there are 
persons at one and the same time sensationalists and 
idealists, believing only in the physical, and yet not be- 
lieving the physical to be real. But, speaking of ideal- 
ism in itself, it is an unphilosophic system, and, in the 
end, has a dangerous tendency. Its radical vice lies in 
maintaining that certain things, which we intuitively 
know or believe to be real, are not real. I say, certain 
things ; for were it to deny that all things are real, it 
would be scepticism. Idealism draws back from such 
an issue with shuddering. But, afl&rming the reality of 
certain objects, with palpable inconsistency it will not 
admit the existence of other objects equally guaranteed 
by our constitution. This inconsistency will pursue the 
system remorselessly as an avenger. Idealism com- 
monly begins by declaring that external objects have no 
such reality as we suppose them to have, and then it is 
driven or led in the next age, or in the pages of the next 
speculator, to avow that they have no reality at all. At 
this stage it will still make lofty pretensions to a real- 



IDEALISM. 307 

ism founded, not on the external phenomenon, but on the 
internal idea. But the logical necessity speedily chases 
the system from this refuge, and constrains the succeed- 
ing speculator to admit that self is not as it seems, or 
that it exists only as it is felt or when it is felt ; and the 
terrible consequence cannot be avoided, that we cannot 
know whether there be objects before us or no, or 
whether there be an eye or a mind to perceive them. 
There is no way of avoiding this black and blank scep- 
ticism but by standing up for the trustworthiness of all 
our original intuitions, and formally maintaining that 
there is a reality wherever our intuitions declare that 
there is. 

The idealist has indeed a truth, which he weaves into 
the body of his system, but that truth is misapprehended 
and perverted. Thei'e are impressions and inferences 
ever mingling, naturally or inadvertently, lawfully or 
unlawfully, with our knowledge ; and he confounds 
these, when it is his business, as a professed philosopher, 
to distinguish them in theory — as men of common sense 
ever distinguish them in practice. His system is not 
clearness, but confusion. He Ijas dived below the sur- 
face, but has not, after all, gone down to the bottom so 
as to see all, and his view of the deep is more obscure 
than if he had remained above. Amazed or enraptured 
with the discovery of certain facts immediately below 
that which is patent to the vulgar eye, he looks on them 
as the main or sole facts, and henceforth overlooks all 
the superficial ones, forgetting that it is true in philos- 
ophy, as in geology, that the rock strata which jut out 
into the most prominent peaks are those which, if we 
follow them, dive down into the deepest interior. He 
has sought to attain a higher position, but has stopped 
half-way, and his views, after all, are not so clear as 



308 ONTOLOGY. 

those obtained further down, and they are certainly much 
more confusing than those which he might have had, 
had he reached the clear height above all dimming in- 
fluence ; they are at best like those which the traveller 
gets on cloudy days when he has climbed a certain eleva- 
tion up the Alps, and, in the midway mists, catches oc- 
casional glimpses of the green valleys below him, and of 
the imposing mountain-tops and sky yet far above him. 



CHAPTER III. 

SCEPTICISM AND AGNOSTICISM. 



In what I have to say on this subject I do not refer to 
the forms which scepticism takes in the common affairs 
of life, where it is often not only legitimate, but a very 
high duty to discharge in exposing lying and deceit, and 
generally, in clearing the moral atmosphere. I treat it 
only as setting itself against deeper and fundamental 
truth. 

Scepticism may take a variety of forms which, how- 
ever, differ in some being more thorough-going than 
others, some denying the veracity of certain of our cog- 
nitions, others denying the trustworthiness of all. The 
most common form which it takes in the present day is 
what is called Agnosticism. The difference between 
this and absolute scepticism is, that while the one denies 
all truth the other tells us that truth cannot be found, 
especially in philosophy and religion. Agnosticism is 
Nescience in that it declares that we cannot find truth ; 
Nihilism in that it asserts that there is nothing to be 
known. All these forms agree in this, that they set aside 
theoretically fundamental truths and practically deprive 
us of the benefit which we might derive from the lofty 
ideas and faiths which we ought to cherish. Like most 
kinds of folly, scepticism commonly does not reach its 
last stage at once, but advances step by step. Some 
philosopher of eminence sets aside one of our intuitions, 
and then an advancing thinker, impelled by logical con- 



310 ONTOLOGY. 

sistency, or by the sharpness of his mind, or by levity or 
wantonness, or by the love of paradox or of notoriety, 
shows how, on the same ground, we may deny them all. 
It was thus that Berkeley, in denying the substantial ex- 
istence of body, prepared the way for Hume, who denied 
the substantial existence of spirit ; and thus that Kant, 
in affirming that space and time had no existence out of 
the mind, opened a path for Fichte, when he declared 
that the external object in space might also be the crea- 
tion of the mind ; and for Schelling and Hegel when 
they made mind and matter. Creator and creature, all 
and alike ideal. I have already discussed scepticism dis- 
guised as idealism ; I am now to offer a few remarks on 
an avowed scepticism. 

11. 

Let us understand precisely how far a sceptic may go. 
In doing so it is essential to remember the distinction 
between the spontaneous and reflex use of our intuitions. 
Under the first of these aspects they not only claim au- 
thority, they secure practical concurrence and obedience. 
Every man knows that he has a bodily frame, and be- 
lieves that it exists in space, and that if he would go in 
the nearest way to a given point, he must walk in a 
straight line. Doubt and denial are possible only in re- 
gard to the reflex statement of intuitive principles. 
Every man is in fact convinced that he has a solid bodily 
frame, and that the nearest way to a particular place is 
a straight line ; but it is possible for him, if he chooses, 
to deny the propositions in which these truths are con- 
veyed ; it is quite competent for him speculatively to 
assert that he has not a body, and that the shortest road 
to a given point is a crooked line. 

And this leads me to point out in what respect seep- 



SCEPTICISM AND AGNOSTICISM. 311 

ticism may be allowable, and ■wherein it may even be 
beneficial. The dogmatist often lays down and employs, 
for purposes lawful and unlawful, principles represented 
as indisputable, which have not the sanction of our con- 
stitution, or which may be expressed in a form only par- 
tially or approximately correct. Great interests may 
often be involved in having these principles doubted or 
disputed. Without this we may find, before we are 
aware of it, great moral or religious truths assaulted or 
undermined ; or we may set up for defence of the citadel 
of truth a crazy and insecure turret, which is a positive 
weakness, and which, as it falls, may give an easier inlet 
to the enemy. This, then, is the special mission of the 
sceptic : it is to lay a restraint on the dogmatist ; at 
times, if need be, to assail or to lash him. It would be 
wrong to deny that the scepticism of Hume has cleared 
the philosophic atmosphere of many weakening and de- 
leterious influences which had been gathering for cen- 
turies. The great sin of scepticism lies in this, that it 
attacks indiscriminately the good and the evil, and would 
destroy both as by a consuming fire. But surely there 
may be a means of securing all the good ends which 
scepticism has produced, without the accompanying de- 
struction of the good. Socrates seems to me to have 
succeeded in this, when he attacked the pretentious sys- 
tems of his age, at the same time that he held resolutely 
by every great moral and spiritual truth. Let it be ad- 
mitted that our spontaneous convictions guarantee a 
truth, but let it be avowed at the same time that any 
given philosophic expression of them is fallible, and may 
be doubted, disputed, and denied. Let it be understood, 
as to every philosophic principle proffered, that we are 
entitled, nay, in duty bound, to examine it before we as- 
sent to it, and that the burden of establishing that it is a 



312 ONTOLOGY. 

tborough transcript of the law in the mind lies on him 
who employs it. By this simple rule, rigidly enforced 
and scrupulously followed, we might have all the benefits 
which have arisen from the siftings of scepticism, with- 
out its fearful throes, and its slaughters — terrible as 
those of a battle-field — of noble credences and inspiring 
hopes. 

III. 

But what are we to do with the sceptic, that is, with 
one who speculatively denies intuitive truth ? 

1. There are some things which we ought not to do 
with him. We should not waste our precious feeling in 
professing to sympathize with him, as if he were practi- 
cally troubled with doubts as to the existence of himself, 
or his friends, or his enemies, or his food, or his money, 
or his earthly interests ; for in respect of all these he is 
quite as firm a believer as the man who comes to con- 
vince him with an apparatus of argument. Nor need 
we be at the trouble of appointing a guard to watch him 
lest he run against a carriage, or step into a river, or fall 
over a precipice. For whatever he may profess to us or 
to himself, he believes in the existence of the carriage, 
the river, and the precipice, and has a salutary awe of 
their perilous power. Nor would there be any propriety 
in declaring him mad, and sending him to Bedlam, for he 
only pretends to have lost his senses, or rather, never to 
have had them, and in his simulation has over-acted his 
part, and gone beyond the madman, who never sets him- 
self against intuitive trutli. (a) 

2. There are some things which we cannot do with the 
sceptic, and therefore should not attempt to do. We 
cannot answer him by argument, that is, mediate proof ; 
for this, if followed sufficiently far back, will conduct ua 



SCEPTICISM AND AGNOSTICISM. 313 

to a principle which cannot be proven, and which there- 
fore the sceptic will deny. It can scarcely be regarded 
as a complete refutation to demonstrate that his sceptical 
denials are inconsistent with certain afl&rmations made 
by him ; for he may admit the inconsistencies, and then 
found his argument against the possibility of discovering 
truth, on the circumstance that he and every other must 
inevitably fall into contradictions. It is not even a con- 
futation when it is shown that this scepticism is suicidal, 
or violates the law of contradiction, for he may find no 
position so suited to him as that which maintains that all 
knowledge is contradictory. 



IV. 

Still there are some things which we can do for or 
with the sceptic. 

1. We may make use of any admissions avowed by 
him or incidentally made, in order to shut him up into 
truths which he denies. Sometimes we may be able 
to show that the truth which he allows implies the 
truth which he disallows. In other cases we can ask 
him on what principle or ground he assents to certain 
truths ; and when we have his answer, we may be able 
to show how, on the same grounds, he must admit 
other propositions. Thus we ask the Berkelej'an on what 
ground he admits the existence of the subject mind ; and, 
whatever it be, we may show that the same ground sup- 
ports the doctrine of the existence of the object matter. 
Thus, too, we may ask how it is that Kant admits the 
existence of a thing behind the phenomenon, and by 
help of this process proves that the phenomenon is the 
thing. If Fichte admit an Ego, or a self, or a belief, it 
is competent to proceed thereon to show that we are 



314 ONTOLOGY. 

thereby constrained to believe in the existence of objects 
out of self and independent of our belief. This argu- 
mentum ad hominem is perfectly allowable. We can say 
to him, If you admit this^ you must also admit that. If 
he is so guarded and stinted in his admissions as to say 
that he allows this merely practically, and not theoretic- 
ally or absolutely, we are entitled to demand of him that 
he likewise believe that practically. Thus, if he admit 
practically that he has at any time had (what Hume 
allows at the outset) an impression, or idea, we may 
show him that he should also admit practically that he 
has an abiding and an identical self, and that he contem- 
plates objects out of him, and independent of him, and, 
as more important, that he should admit practically that 
he is a responsible being, and must give account of him- 
self. Should he try to save himself by declaring that 
he believes the first, or second, or third of those truths, 
only because obliged to do so, we may show that there 
is a similar necessity requiring him to believe the rest. 
This is a telling argument, which has been used with 
great skill and power by many of the opponents of scep- 
ticism in all ages. Ifc is emphatically an argumentum ad 
hominem, for it is one which may be used not merely 
against a particular individual, but with men as men, 
with every man. No man but admits something, and 
that something may be employed to make him admit 
something else. It can be shown that he who doubts 
believes, that he who denies affirms, and that he who 
doubts or denies that he doubts or denies, is in the very 
act of making an affirmation. Such a process goes at least 
to shut the mouth of the sceptic, for if he open his 
mouth, it is to let out language which you can turn 
against him. His only refuge is in a thoroughgoing 
scepticism, which affirms that man's supposed knowledge 



SCEPTICISM AND AGNOSTICISM. 315 

is contradictory, and that all argument is delusive. You 
can at least insist on this scepticism that it remain silent, 
and not advance arguments v^bich are inconsistent with 
that judgment or belief to which it would appeal, (b') 

V. 

We can carefully explain the nature of a primitive con- 
viction. The method named under the last head is one 
which we may quite legitimately employ in dealing with 
the sophist or the caviller ; we may always kill him with 
his own weapons. But we have a more satisfactory 
mode of dealing with the truth-seeking and the truth- 
loving. We can ask them to examine the nature of the 
convictions to which we invite them to yield. 

1. It can be shown that the mind declares of itself 
that its primitive perceptions contain knowledge. I do 
not urge this as a mediate proof, or a new and indepen- 
dent proof ; it is simply the statement of a fact, that the 
mind, in contemplating its original convictions, affirms 
that there is knowledge in them. As to some of its 
states, it finds that they contain sensations, sentiments, 
imaginations, but in every one of them, at the same 
time, a cognition of self, and in certain of them a cogni- 
tion of an object or truth external to self and indepen- 
dent of it. It is to these that we ask consent without 
the aid of further evidence. 

2. It may be shown that the intuitive principles of 
the mind are native, catholic, necessary. It is not truth 
merely to the individual man, but to all men ; not merely 
to all men, but to all intelligent beings. It is certain, 
not only to me but to all beings throughout the universe 
who have capacity to understand it, that if two straight 
lines proceed an inch without coming nearer, they will 
proceed a million of miles without coming nearer ; and 



316 ONTOLOGY. 

ndt only is the wilful infliction of pain a sin on earth, it 
is a sin in every other part of the universe. 

3. The mind declares of certain truths that they need 
no other truth to support them. There are cases in which 
it feels that it needs evidence in order to gain its assent. 
It does not allow that there was such a man as David, 
king of Israel, or Philip, king of Macedon, till proof is 
brought forward. It may remain in doubt as to what 
truth there is in the poetical accounts of the siege of 
Troy, because no valid evidence is produced. But it 
draws a distinction between these cases and others in 
which it needs no probation. When it is asserted that 
the moon is inhabited, the mind asks proof, but it asks 
none when it is affirmed that I am the same person to- 
day as I was yesterday. It is conceivable that the first 
of these assertions might be substantiated by evidence 
which would command our assent, but it would not, after 
all, be a more rational assent than that which we give at 
once to the other. 

4. The mind knows self-evident truth to be the most 
certain of all truths. What is it that the sceptic de- 
mands ? It is all-important to put this question, and to 
fix him down to a specific answer. Does he demand 
proof or argument ? Then it implies that he would be 
satisfied with argument. But it can be shown him that 
in argument there is a first principle involved, the de- 
pendence of conclusion on premises, and in the last re- 
sort we come to a premiss not admitting of probation. 
But surely he who admits argument must admit all that 
is in argument ; but as to the premiss with which we set 
out, it is not less evident, it is more evident, than the con- 
clusion. It is so far a weakness in a proposition, or 
rather of our mind in reference to it, that we do not see 
it to be true or false immediately. The mind declares 



SCEPTICISM AND AGNOSTICISM. 317 

that the most certain of all truths are those which are 
seen to be true at once and in themselves. 

VI. 

It can be shown that there is a congruity and con- 
sistency among the original and derivative convictions of 
the mind. This is not urged as if it were an indepen- 
dent and unassailable demonstration. It is conceivable 
that the power from which human power derives its 
power might have made all men liable to deception, in- 
capable of being ever detected, in consequence of its 
being carefully provided that no inconsistencies should 
creep in. This is certainly possible, though it is by no 
means probable, according, at least, to our laws of judg- 
ment. For, if this power be a Being possessed of good- 
ness and truth, it is not conceivable that he should form 
any creature liable to be deceived ; and, if it be a ca- 
pricious or malignant power, it is by no means probable 
that all the deceptions would turn out to be congruous : 
here or there would come out an original conviction in 
manifest contradiction to another original conviction, or 
a derivative principle openly inconsistent with both. The 
consistency of the parts is thus a sort of corroboration of 
the truth of each part and of the whole. To give only 
two examples: It is by intuition, I have endeavored to 
show, that the intellect, on discovering an effect, looks 
for a cause, and it always finds, in fact, that for every 
effect there is a cause ; and as it finds this again and 
again, in an extended and invariable experience, it has 
in this, not a primary proof, but a secondary confirma- 
tion of its intuition. Again, we expect that sin will not 
go unpunished ; from time to time we find it punished in 
this life, and are thus strengthened in our convictions 
that it will all be punished at last. All the intuitions 



318 ONTOLOGY. 

Have such corroborations in the daily experience of every 
man, and these are felt to give a satisfaction to the 
mind (c). 

vn. 

When we reach the great truth that there is a right- 
eous God, we can plead the Divine veracity in favor of 
the trustworthiness of the intuitive convictions planted 
by him in our constitution. Not that even this considera- 
tion can be adduced as a primary or an absolute proof ; 
for it is only on the supposition that a God exists that it 
can be legitimately employed, and our conviction of the 
Divine existence presupposes a confidence in the veracity 
of our intuitions and arguments founded on them. But 
this truth, being once admitted, becomes henceforth the 
keystone which keeps all the separate and independent 
parts of our constitution in one compact and stable 
whole, which can never be broken down, but will be felt 
to be the stronger the greater the weight that is laid 
upon it. 

VIII. 

No truths, recognized by the mind as such, can be 
shown to be contradictory. In this line of thought a 
sound metaphysics may accomplish some good ends. 
Sceptics have labored — and others not sceptics have 
done their best to aid them — to prove that certain prop- 
ositions approved of by the mind are contradictory. But 
the attempt has failed, as can be shown, I believe, as to 
every case in which it has been tried. It can be proved, 
in regard to the opposed propositions, that, in some cases, 
they have no meaning ; that, in other cases, the mind 
pronounces in favor of neither the one nor the other ; 
that, in several cases, the propositions seem to be con- 



SCEPTICISM AND AGNOSTICISM. 319 

tradictory only because improperly stated, and when 
they are properly enunciated the difficulty altogether dis- 
appears ; and that, in the remaining cases, there is merely 
a difficulty in proposing a positive reconciliation, and no 
actual inconsistency. 

There is little risk of scepticism producing any in- 
jurious influence in the common business of life. The 
reason is, that circumstances ever pressing on the atten- 
tion constrain men to proceed on their spontaneous prin- 
ciples, which are sound, even when the speculative prin- 
ciples are altogether infidel. He who is hungry will 
partake of food, lie who sees an offensive weapon about 
to strike him will avoid it, even though they be not pre- 
pared to avow, as philosophers, that there are any such 
gross things as bread or iron in the universe, or though 
they may doubt, as metaphysicians, whether food be fitted 
to nourish, or a sword to kill. It is not in such urgent 
matters of animal comfort and temporal interest that 
scepticism is wont to manifest itself, but in far different 
subjects, and especially in leading persons to doubt of 
the great truths of morality and religion, the practical 
action in which is more under the control of the will. 
Even liere there will be times when the spontaneous be- 
lief or impulse will overmaster the speculative unbelief ; 
as when moral indignation, implying a belief in the 
reality of sin, is excited by a mean or dishonest action, 
or when disease has seized us, and death seems in hard 
pursuit, and tlireatens to hurry us to the judgment-seat. 
Such occasions will call forth the action of conscience, in 
spite of all efforts to repress it. But when there is noth- 
ing of this description to arouse the native feeling, un- 
belief may succeed in keeping us very much out of the 
way of all that would call the internal sentiment into 
activity, and for days, or weeks, or months together it 



320 ONTOLOGY. 

may seldom arise to utter a protest or create a disturb- 
ance of any description ; and, even when the deeper 
moral or religious powers come forth to assert their au- 
thority, there may be a vigorous, and so far a success- 
ful, warfare waged with them ; that is, they may be so 
far repressed as not to command the will, or lead to any 
practical operation. Hence the evil of scepticism in 
chilling the ardor of youth, and confirming the hardness 
of age, in repressing every noble aspiration and every 
high effort, while it leaves the soul the servant or slave 
of the lower, the sensual, the ambitious, the proud, or 
the selfish impulses of the heart. 

(a) M. Morel was asked to examine a prisoner who pretended to 
be deranged, and asked him how old he was ; to which the prisoner 
replied, " 245 francs, 35 centimes, 124 carriages," etc. To the same 
question, more distinctly asked, he replied, " 5 metres, 75 centi- 
metres." When asked how long he had been deranged, he an- 
swered, "Cats, always cats." M. Morel at once proclaimed his 
madness to be simulated, and states : " In their extreme aberra- 
tions, in their most furious delirium, madmen do not confound what 
it is impossible for the most extravagant logic to confound." (See 
Psychological Journal, October, 1857.) 

(h) It is thus that when Professor Ferrier declares that we know the 
object mecum, we can show that on the same ground, whatever it be, 
he should admit an object independent of the me. He says {Scottish 
Philosophy, pp. 19, 20), that " no man in his senses could require a 
proof that it [that is, real existence] is." I am glad of this appeal. 
A man's senses tell him that the stone before us has an existence in- 
dependent of the contemplative mind. 

(c) Speaking of primary convictions of the mind, Hamilton says: 
" They are many, they are in authority coordinate, and their testi- 
mony is clear and precise. It is therefore competent for us to view 
them in correlation ; to compare their declarations ; and to consider 
whether they contradict, and, by contradicting, invalidate each 
other. This mutual contradiction is possible in two ways : 1st, it 
may be that the primary data themselves are directly or immediately 
contradictory of each other ; 2d, it may be that they are mediately or 



ON THE CONDITIONED AND THE UNCONDITIONED. 321 

indirectly contradictory, inasmuch as the consequences to which they 
necessarily lead, and for the truth and falseliood of which they are 
therefore responsible, are mutually repugnant. By evincing either 
of these, the veracity of consciousness will be disproved ; for, in 
either case, consciousness is shown to be inconsistent with itself, and 
consequently inconsistent with the unity of truth. But by no other 
process of demonstration is this possible." He adds : "No attempt 
to show that the data of consciousness are (either in themselves or in 
their necessary consequences) mutually contradictory has yet suc- 
ceeded." 



CHAPTER IV. 

(Supplementary.) 
on the conditioned and the unconditioned. 

Leibnitz complained of Sophie Charlotte of Prussia that she asked 
the why of the why. There are some truths in regard to which we 
are not warranted to ask the why. They shine in their own light ; 
and we feel that we need no light, and we ask no light, wherewith to 
see them, and any light which might be brought to aid would only 
perplex us. In all such cases the mind asks no why, and is amazed 
when the why is asked ; and feels that it can give no answer, and 
ought not to attempt an answer. Other truths may be known only 
mediately, or by means of some other truth coming between as evi- 
dence. I need no mediate proof to convince me that I exist, or that 
I hold an object in my hand which I call a pen ; but I need evidence 
to convince me that there are inhabitants in India, or that there is 
a cycle of spots presented in the sun's rotation. In regard to this 
class of truths I am entitled — nay, required — to ask the tohy. Not 
only so ; if the truth urged as evidence is not self-evident, I may ask 
the ivhy of the why, and the why of that why, on and on, till we come 
to a self-evident truth, when the why becomes unintelligible. Now 
we may say of the one class of truths that they depend (to us) on no 
condition, and call them Unconditioned ; whereas we must call the 
other Conditioned, for our rational nature demands another truth as 
a condition of our assenting to them. 

But this is not precisely what is meant, or all that is meant, by 



322 ONTOLOGY. 

conditioned and unconditioned in philosophic nomenclature. We 
find that not only does one truth depend on another as evidence to 
our minds, but one thing as an existence depends on another. Every- 
thing falling under our notice on earth is dependent on some other 
thing as its cause. All physical events proceed from a concurrence 
of previous circumstances. All animated beings come from a paren- 
tage. But is everything that exists thus a dependent link in a chain 
which hangs on nothing ? There are intellectual instincts which re- 
coil from such a thought. There are intuitions which, proceeding on 
facts ever pressing themselves on the attention, lead to a very dif- 
ferent result. By our intuitive conviction in regard to substance, 
we are introduced to that which has power of itself. True, we dis- 
cover that all mundane substances, spiritual and material, have in 
fact been originated, and have proceeded from something anterior to 
them. But then intuitive reason presses us on, and we seek for a 
cause of that cause which is furthest removed from our view. It is 
a favorite principle with Aristotle that there cannot be an infinite 
series of causes ; see, in particular, Meiaph. i. Minor, ii., where he 
supports his doctrine by very subtle reasoning. The principle has 
been sanctioned by most profound thinkers ; see Clarke, Demons, of 
Being and Attrih. of God, ii., where the proposition is supported by 
very doubtful metaphysics. I am inclined to think we come to the 
principle by finding that in following various lines we come to a stop ; 
particularly, in following substance and quality, we come to self-ex- 
istent substance. Pursuing various lines, external and internal, we 
come to a substance which has no mark of being an effect ; to a sub- 
stance who is the cause, and, as such, the intelligent cause, of all the 
order and adaptation of one thing to another in the universe ; who 
is the founder of the moral power within us, and the sanctioner of 
the moral law to which it looks, and who seems to be that Infinite 
Existence to which our faith in infinity is ever pointing, — and now 
the mind in all its intuitions is satisfied. The intuitive belief as to 
power in substance is satisfied ; the intuitive belief in the adequacy 
of the cause to produce its effects is satisfied ; the native moral con- 
viction is satisfied ; and the belief in infinity is satisfied. True, 
every step in this process is not intuitive or demonstrative, — there 
may be more than one experiential link in the chain ; but the intui- 
tive convictions enter very largely ; and when experience has fur- 
nished its quota, they are gratified, and feel as if they had nothing 
to demand beyond this One Substance possessed of all power and of 
all perfection. 



ON THE CONDITIONED AND THE UNCONDITIONED. 323 

If we would avoid the utmost possible confusion of thought, we 
must distinguish between these two kinds of conditioned and uncon- 
ditioned : the one referring to human knowledge, and the discussion 
of it falling properly under Gnosiology ; the other to existence, and 
so falling under Ontology. The conditional, in respect of knowl- 
edge, does, if we pursue the conditioned sufSciently far, conduct at 
last to primary truths, which are to us unconditioned. These are 
the first truths which we have been seeking to seize and express in 
this treatise. We cannot be made to think or believe that these pri- 
mary truths should not be positive truths, and regarded as truths by 
all other beings capable of comprehending them. But it is to be 
carefully remarked, and ever allowed, that some of those truths 
which are original and independent to us, may be seen by higher in- 
telligences to be dependent on, or to be necessarily interlinked with, 
other truths. We may by patient induction ascertain what are to us 
unconditioned truths; but it would be presumptuous in us to pretend 
to determine what truths are so in themselves, and are seen to be 
such by the omniscient God. Again, as to conditioned and uncondi- 
tioned existence, it is quite clear that nothing falls under our notice 
in this world which is absolutely unconditioned. But the intuitive 
convictions of the mind, proceeding on a few obvious facts, lead us 
by an easy process to an unconditioned Being, — that is, whose exist- 
ence depends on no other. 

But the question is started, Can we conceive the Unconditioned ? 
Of truth unconditioned to us we can conceive. It consists, in fact, 
of that body of truths on which we are ever falling back in the last 
resort; in other words, of those original perceptions and principles 
which I have been seeking to unfold in this treatise. But can we 
conceive of unconditioned existence ? I find no difficulty in doing 
so. Our intellectual and moral convictions are not satisfied till we 
reach underived being. I admit the word " unconditioned " is neg- 
ative; it implies merely the removal of a condition. But we re- 
move the condition, because we come to cases where our intuitive 
reason does not insist on it, and where our intuitive perceptions rest 
on undei'ived existence. Pursuing any one of our native convic- 
tions, cognitive, fiducial, judicial, or moral, it conducts us to, and 
falls back on, an object of whom we have a positive conception, — 
that is a Being from whom all conditions are removed, and whose 
existence and perfections are themselves underived, while they are 
the source of all power and excellence in the creature. 

The above may seem to some rather a prosaic account of a sub- 



324 ONTOLOGY. 

ject which has been lost in such high and dim speculations. But 
the question is, Is it the correct version? It seems rather an arbi- 
trary use of language on the part of Sir W. Hamilton {Metaph. 
Lect. 38) to make the Unconditioned a genus including two species, 
the Infinite and Absolute. When the Unconditioned is referred to, 
let us always understand whether it means unconditioned in thought 
or existence. 



CHAPTER V. 

(supplementary.) 
the antinomies of kant. 

Kant tries to show that the speculative reason conducts to proposi- 
tions which are contradictory of each other (Kriiik d. r. Vern. p. 
338). It follows that it cannot be trusted in any of its enunciations. 
Kant extricates himself from the practical difficulties in which he 
was thereby involved, by declaring that the speculative reason was 
not given to lead us to positive objective truth, and by appealing 
from it to the practical reason. It is, however, always competent to 
the sceptic to maintain that, if the speculative reason deceive us, so 
also may the practical reason. The doctrine which I hold is, that 
the reason does not lead directly nor consequentially to any such 
contradictions. In regard to some of the counter - propositions. 
Reason seems to me to say nothing on the one side or the other. 
In regard to others, there seem to be intuitive convictions, but the 
contradiction arises from an erroneous exposition or expression of 
them. It is of course easy, on such abstruse subjects, to construct a 
series of propositions which may seem to be contradictory, or in real- 
ity be contradictory, — if they have a meaning at all. But these 
propositions will be found not to be the expression of the actual deci- 
sions of the mind. Let us examine the contradictions which are sup- 
posed to be sanctioned by reason. I am to content myself with look- 
ing at the propositions themselves, without entering on the elaborate 
demonstrations of them by Kant. These demonstrations proceed on 
the peculiar Kantian principles in regard to phenomena, space, 
time, and the nature of the relations which the mind can discover, 
and these I have been seeking to undermine all throughout this 
treatise. It will be enough here to show that Intuitive Reason 
sanctions no contradictions on the topics to which Kant refers. 



THE ANTINOMIES OF KANT. 325 



FIRST ANTINOMY. 

The world has a beginning in The world has no beginning in 
time, and is limited in regard to time, and no limits in space, but 
space. is in regard to both infinite. 

Now upon this I have to remark, first, that as to the "world," we 
have, so far as I can discover, no intuition whatever. We have 
merely an intuition as to certain things in the world, or, it may be, 
out of the world. Our reason does declare that space and time are 
infinite, but it does not declare whether the world is or is not infi- 
finite in extent and duration. We shall find under another anti- 
nomy what is our conviction as to God. Reason does not declare 
that space or time, or the God who inhabits them, must be finite. 

SECOND ANTINOMY. 

Every composite substance con- No composite thing can consist 
sists of simple parts, and all that of simple parts, and there cannot 
exists must either be simple or exist in the world any simple sub- 
composed of simple parts. stance. 

Our reason says nothing as to whether things are or are not made 
up of simple substances. Experience cannot settle the question 
started by Kant in one way or other. We find certain things com- 
posite ; these we know are made up of parts ; but we cannot say 
how far the decomposition may extend, or what is the nature of the 
furthest elements reached. 

THIRD ANTINOMY. 

Causality, according to the laws There is no such thing as free- 

of nature, is not the only causality dom, but everything in the world 

operating to originate the phe- happens according to the laws of 

nomena of the world ; to account nature. . , 
for the phenomena we must have 
a causality of freedom. 

Here I think reason does sanction two sets of facts. One is the 
existence of freedom : tlie other is the universal prevalence of some 
sort of causation, which may differ, however, in every different kind 
of object. These may be so stated as to be contradicitory. But our 
convictions in themselves involve no contradiction : it is impossible 
to show that they do by the law of contradiction, which is that " A 



326 ONTOLOGY. 

is not Not- A." " There is some sort of causation even in voluntary- 
acts ; " and " the will is free ; " no one can show that these two 
propositions are contradictory. 

FOURTH ANTINOMY. 

There exists in the world, or in An absolutely necessary being 

connection with it, as a part or does not exist, either in the world 

as the cause of it, an absolutely or out of it, as the cause of the 

necessary being. world. 

Our reason seems to say that time and space must have ever ex- 
isted and must exist. When a God is found, by an easy process the 
mind is led by intuition to trace up these effects in nature to him as 
the underived substance. No contradictory proposition can be estab- 
lished either by reason or experience. 

A little patient investigation of our actual intuitions will show that 
all these contradictions, of which the Kantians and Hegelians make 
so much, are not in our constitutions, but in the ingenious structures 
fashioned by metaphysicians to support their theories. 



CHAPTER V. 

(supplementary.) 
ON the relativity of knowledge. 

Sir William Hamilton has not always been successful, as it 
appears to me, in fusing what he adheres to in the realism of Reid 
with what he has adopted from the forms of Kant. His own special 
theory is that of Relativity, which acknowledges a reality, but de- 
clares that we can never know it except under modifications imposed 
by our minds. It can be shown, I think, that there is a doctrine of 
relativity which has been proceeded upon, and expressed, though 
commonly in a loose way, by nearly the whole chain of philosophers 
from the earliest ages of reflective thought down to the time when 
Schelling and Hegel propounded the philosophy of the absolute, 
which has been overthrown by Hamilton. But it cannot be proven 
that the great body of metaphysicians would have acknowledged the 
peculiar doctrine of the Scottish philosopher. There is evidently a 



ON THE RELATIVITY OF KNOWLEDGE. 327 

true doctrine of relativity, if only we could express it accurately. 
It should be admitted : (1.) That man knows only so far as he has 
the faculties of knowledge; (2.) That he knows objects only under 
aspects presented to his faculties ; and (3.) That his faculties are 
limited, and consequently his knowledge limited, so that not only 
does he not know all objects, he does not know all about any one 
object. It may further be allowed : (4.) That in perception by 
the senses, we know external objects in a relation to the perceiving 
mind. But while these views can be established in opposition to the 
philosophy of the absolute, it should ever be resolutely maintained 
on the other hand : (1.) That we know the very thing ; and (2.) 
That our knowledge is correct so far as it goes. We admit a subtle 
scepticism when we allow, with Kant, that we do not know the thing 
itself, but merely a phenomenon in the sense of appearance ; or, 
with Hamilton, that we perceive merely the relations of things. I 
have endeavored to show that the mind begins with the knowledge 
of things, and is thence able to compare things (see supra, p. 58). 
A still more dangerous error follows where it is affirmed that our 
knowledge is always modified by the percipient mind, and that we 
add to the object something which is not, or at least may not, be ia 
it (see supra, pp. 28, 29). 

Dr. Mansel, in his able and learned Bampton Lectures, has applied 
this doctrine of relativity to the knowledge of God, with the view of 
undermining, which he has successfully done, the theology of the ab- 
solute. I am prepared to show, bj' a large collation of passages, that 
the great body of Christian divines have maintained two important 
points in regard to our knowledge of God. One is that man cannot 
rise to a full knowledge of God, and that there is much in God 
which we cannot know. This arises, they show, from the greatness 
of God, on the one hand, and the weakness of man on the other. 
But they also hold as another point, that man may truly know God 
by the light of nature, and still more specially by the light of reve- 
lation. No doubt they differ in the language wliich they employ to 
set forth their views ; their mode of statement and illustration is 
often vague and loose ; and they frequently employ the phrases and 
distinctions of philosophic systems whose day has long gone by. 
Still it can be shown that they meant to set forth both these truths. 
To quote only a few passages from the Fathers : Irensus is trans- 
lated, " Invisibilis quidem poterat eis ipse (Dens) propter eminen- 
tiam : ignotus autera nequaquam propter providentiam " (Contra 
Omnes Uceret. ii. 6). Tertullian says : " Deus ignotus esse non 



328 ONTOLOGY. 

debuit" (Adv. Marcionem, iii. 3). In like manner Lactantius: 
"Deus igitur noscendus est in quo solo est Veritas " (De Ira, i.). 
Augustine illustrates what we can know of God thus : " Aliud est 
enim videre, aliud est totum videndo comprehendere " (Epist. Class. 
iii. 21 ; see another passage, supra, p. 138). The great body of 
Christian divines have certainly not maintained : (1.) That God 
can be known only under forms or modifications imposed by the 
thinking mind ; (2.) That our idea of God's eternity and omnipres- 
ence is simply negative ; or (3.) That man has a faith in an infinite 
God, with no corresponding knowledge or idea. I admit, at the same 
time, that there have been some respectable theologians holding a doc- 
trine somewhat like that of Hamilton and Mansel. In particular, 
Bishop Peter Browne maintains that the true and real nature of God 
and his attributes is '* utterly incomprehensible and ineffable ; " but 
then he acknowledges that the Fathers did not lay down the distinc- 
tion on which he proceeds, nor " pursue it logically through all the 
particulars of our knowledge, human and divine ; " and he complains 
in his work on The Procedure, Extent, and Limits of the Human 
Understanding, 3d edit., that, so far from his views being generally 
received, now, twenty-five years after their publication, " the many 
pious and learned defenders of the faith either declined proceeding 
on the foundation there laid, or have generally given only some gen- 
eral, short, and imperfect hints of the analogy." 



CHAPTER VI. 

(supplementary.) 

examination of mr. j. s. mill's metaphysical system. 

By far the ablest opponent of intuitive truth in this country, in 
our day, is Mr. John Stuart Mill. It will be necessary to examine 
his own metaphysical system : I speak thus because he has in fact a 
metaphysics underlying his whole logical disquisitions. He says, 
indeed, in the introduction to his Logic, that " with the original data 
or ultimate premises of our knowledge, with their number or nature, 
the mode in which they are obtained, or the tests by which they may 
be distinguished, logic in a direct way has, in the sense in which I 



mill's metaphysical system. 329 

conceive the same, nothing to do." Yet Mr, Mill is ever and anon 
diving down into these very topics, and uttering very deciiled opin- 
ions as to our knowledge of mind and body, as to the foundation of 
reasoning and demonstrative evidence, and as to our belief in causa- 
tion. This I exceedingly regret ; the more so that his logic in topics 
remote from first principles is distinguished for masterly exposition, 
for great clearness, and practical utility. If it be answered that a 
thorough logic cannot be constructed without building on the foun- 
dations which metaphysics supply, then I have to regret that Mr. 
Mill's metaphysics should be so defective. His philosophy might 
seem to be that of Locke ; but in fact it omits many truths to which 
Locke gave prominence, as, for example, the high function of intu- 
ition. Mr. Mill's metaphysical system is that of the age and circle 
in which he was trained ; it is derived in part from Dr. Brown, 
and his own father, Mr. James Mill, and to a greater extent from 
M. Comte. 

The only satisfactory metaphysical admission of Mr. Mill is, 
"Whatever is known to us by consciousness is known beyond the 
possibility of question " (Lor/ic, Introd.). What does this admission 
amount to ? First, as to self, or mind, he says, " But what this 
being is, although it is myself, I have no knowledge, other than the 
series of its states of consciousness." As to body, he says the reason- 
able opinion is that it is the " hidden external cause to which we 
refer our sensations " (Logic, i. iii. 8). Sensation is our only primary 
mental operation in regard to an external world ; and perception is 
discarded "as an obscure word " (compare Dissertations, Vol. i. p. 
94). "There is not the slightest reason for believing that what we 
call the sensible qualities of the object are a type of anything in- 
herent in itself, or bear any affinity to its own nature. ' ' " Why should 
matter resemble our sensations ? " {Logic, i. iii. 7). Speaking of 
bodies, and our feelings or states of consciousness, he says : " The 
bodies, or external objects which excite certain of these feelings, to- 
gether with the powers or properties whereby they excite them, — 
these being included rather in compliance with common opinion, and 
because tlieir existence is taken for granted in the common language, 
from which I cannot deviate, than because the recognition of such 
powers or profierties as real existence appears to be warranted by a 
sound philosophy." It is curious to see how extremes meet. Mr. 
Mill seems in every way the opponent of the Kantian school. Yet 
he quotes with approbation and evident delight the words of Sir W. 
Ilnmilton, " All that we know is therefore phenomenal, phenomenal 
of the unknown" (l. iii. 7). 



330 ONTOLOGY. 

r have to ask my readers to compare this philosophic system with 
the account I have submitted in this treatise, and judge for them- 
selves in the light of consciousness. He admits that whatever is 
known by consciousness is beyond possibility of question ; but I hold 
that by consciousness we know much more than he admits. He 
allows that we know " Feelings," — the favorite but most inadequate 
language of the French sensationalists and of Bi-own. I maintain 
that our consciousness is of Self as Feeling, and not of Feelings 
separate from Self. If he ask me to define Self, which I maintain 
that we thus know, I ask him to define Feeling, which he acknowl- 
edges that we thus know. It will then be seen that neither can be 
defined, because both are original perceptions of consciousness. He 
admits as indisputable only what we are conscious of. I maintain 
that we must admit all we intuitively know, and that we know body 
immediately. Mr. Mill, following Brown, maintains that we know 
body by inference, as the cause of what we feel. Brown can get the 
inference ; for he holds resolutely by the doctrine that we intuitively 
believe that every effect has a cause ; and discovering phenomena in 
us which have no cause in us, he seeks for a cause without us. This 
process would, I think, leave the external world an unknown thing, 
and could never give us a knowledge of extension (which not being 
in the effect we could not place in the cause ) ; still we might thus 
argue that an external woi'ld existed. But how can Mr. INlill, who 
denies intuitive causation, get the external world at all? Where, in- 
deed, is he to get even his causation as an experiential law ? For in 
a mind shut up darkly from all direct knowledge of anything be- 
yond, the most common phenomena must be sensations and feelings 
of which we can never discover a cause, or know that they have a 
cause. Kant saved himself from the consequences of his speculative 
system by calling in the Practical Reason ; and Hamilton accom- 
plished the same end by calling in Faith. I think that these great 
men were entitled to appeal to our moral convictions and to our 
necessary faiths. These I hold to be beyond dispute, no less than 
our consciousness or our feelings. But Mr. Mill makes no such ap- 
peal to save him from the void ; and he abstains from expressing any 
opinion as to the great fundamental religious truths which men have 
in all ages intertwined with their ethical principles, and from which 
they have derived their brightest hopes and deepest assurances. He 
is silent on these subjects, as if, on the one hand, unwilling to deny 
them, and as if he felt, on the other hand, that by his miserably de- 
fective philosophic principles he had left himself no ground on which 
to buUd them. 



mill's metaphysical system. 331 

Mr. Mill's derivative logic is admirable; but it is difficult to find 
what the final appeal is to be. " There is no appeal from the hu- 
man faculties generally; but there is an appeal from one faculty to 
another, from the judging faculty to those which take cognizance of 
fact, the faculties of sense and consciousness " (iii. xxi. 1). This 
would seem to make sense and consciousness the final appeal. But 
all that sense gives, according to him, is an unknown cause of feel- 
ings, and all that consciousness gives is a series of feelings. He 
says, very properly, that we should make " the opinion agree with 
the fact;" but he seems to leave us no means of getting at any 
other facts than floating feelings. 

I have already noticed his defective account of our moral percep- 
tion (see supra, p. 225), and of our belief in causation (p. 214), and I 
may yet have occasion to refer to his theory of mathematical axioms 
(infra, p. 348). It now only remains at this place to show that he has 
given an utterly erroneous account of the tests or criteria of primitive 
or fundamental truth. He is obliged, as for himself, to admit some 
sort of test. We must admit, he says, " all that is known by con- 
sciousness ; " and he says there is "no appeal from the human 
faculties generally." I do regret that he has never patiently set him- 
self to inquire what is the knowledge given by "consciousness," and 
in the testimonies of the " faculties generally." This would have 
led him to truths which he ignores, or contemptuously sets aside. 
He examines the views of the defenders of necessary truth on the 
supposition that the test of such truth is that " the negation of it is 
not only false but inconceivable " (Logic, ii. v. 6). He then uses 
the word "inconceivable" in all its ambiguity of meaning. By 
** conceivable " he often means that which we can apprehend, or of 
which we may have an idea, in the sense of an image : " When we 
have often seen or thought of two things together, and have never in 
any one instance either seen or thought of them separately, there is, 
by the primary law of association, an increasing difficulty, which 
may in the end become insuperable, of conceiving the two things 
apart." He then proceeds to show that what is inconceivable by 
one man is conceivable by another ; that what is inconceivable in one 
age may become conceivable in the next. " There was a time when 
men of the most cultivated intellects, and the most emancipated from 
the dominion of early prejudice, would not credit the existence of 
antipodes " (ii. v. 6). I acknowledge that the tests of intuition have 
often been loosely stated, and that they have also been illegitimately 
applied; just as the laws of derivative logic have been. But they 



332 ONTOLOGY. 

have seldom or never been put in the ambiguous form in which Mr. 
Mill understands them; and it is only in such a shape that they could 
ever be supposed to cover such beliefs as the rejection of the rotund- 
ity of the earth. The tests of intuition can be clearly enunciated, 
and can be so used as to settle for us what is intuitive truth. It is 
not the power of conception, in the sense either of phantasm or 
notion, that should be used as a test, but it is self-evidence with 
necessity; the necessity of cognition, if the intuition be a cognition; 
the necessity of belief, if it be a belief; the necessity of judgment, if 
it be a judgment. There was a time when even educated men felt a 
difEculty in conceiving the antipodes, because it seemed contrarj^, not 
to intuition, but to their limited experience ; but surely no one know- 
ing anything of philosophy, or of what he was speaking, would have 
maintained, at any time, that it was self-evident that the earth could 
not be round, and that it was impossible, in any circumstances, to 
believe the opposite. The tests of intuition, clearly announced and 
rigidly applied, give their sanction only to such truths as all men 
have spontaneously assented to in all ages. 



CHAPTER VII. 

(supplementary.) 

the nescience theory. — mr. herbert spencer. 

In the reaction against the high ideal or k priori philosophy of the 
past age, we run a considerable risk of sinking into a systematic 
Nescience, in the darkness of which there may be quite as much 
rash speculation as in the empyrean of transcendentalism. Sir W. 
Hamilton, who did so much to overthrow the Philosophy of the 
Absolute, has unfortunately prepared the way for this other extreme. 
Comparing the two philosophies, he says : '■'■ In one respect both 
coincide; for both agree that the knowledge of Nothing is the prin- 
ciple or result of all true philosophy: — 

Scire Nihil, — studium, quo nos laetamnr utrique. 

But the one openly maintaining that the Nothing must yield every- 



THE NESCIENCE THEORY. 333 

thing is a philosophic omniscience; whereas the other holding that 
Nothing can yield nothing is a philosophic nescience. In other 
words, the doctrine o£ the Unconditioned is a philosopliy confessing 
relative ignorance, but professing absolute knowledge; while the doc- 
trine of the conditioned is a philosophy professing relative knowl- 
edge, but confessing absolute ignorance " {Discus. App. i. Pliilos. 
A). Dr. Mansel has applied the principles of Hamilton to the over- 
throw of the Absolute Theology which, he shows, has involved itself 
in inextricable inconsistencies and contradictions. But it was seen 
by all men capable of looking at consequences, that the doctrine 
might be turned to far different purposes. Mr. Herbert Spencer, in 
his First Principles, professes to build on the ground furnished to 
him by Hamilton and Mansel, and has reached results which they 
would disavow. It remains for the school of Hamilton to show 
whether this can be done with logical consistency. He justly ob- 
serves that " it is rigorously impossible to conceive that our knowl- 
edge is a knowledge of appearances only, without at the same time 
conceiving a reality of which they are appearances; for appearances 
without reality is unthinkable " (p. 88). But then he maintains 
that this Reality beyond the appearances is and must forever remain 
unknown to man. Xor is his general doctrine much improved by 
his allowing that "besides definite consciousness there is an indefi- 
nite consciousness which cannot be formulated," for this indefinite 
thing is only the faith and negative judgments of Hamilton in a still 
vaguer form. He reckons it the province of science to master the 
known appearances; and he allots to religion the sphere of unknown 
realities, " that unascertained something which phenomena and their 
relations imply " (p. 17). This is the " fundamental verity," " com- 
mon to all religions," " the ultimate religious truth of the highest 
possible certainty," that "the Power which the universe manifests to 
us is utterly inscrutable." He quotes with approbation the language 
of Hamilton about its being the highest effort of thou<iht to erect an 
altar " to the unknown and unknowable God; " ami as to this un- 
known he thinks it ri<iht "to refrain from assigning to it any at- 
tributes whatever, on the ground that such attributes, derived as 
they must be from our own natures, are not elevations but degrada- 
tions " (p. 109). Looking to the interests both of philosophy and 
religion, it is of great moment to lay an arrest on this style of 
thought, — quite as important as it was to stay in last age the now 
exploded Philosophy of the Absolute. I meet it by maintaining as 
the proper postulate, sanctioned by consciousness, that the mind be- 



334 ONTOLOGY. 

gins with a knowledge of things, partial no doubt, but still correct 
so far as it goes. From this primitive knowledge and adhering be- 
liefs it reaches further knowledge. In particular, the real effects in 
nature carry us up to a real cause. The evidences of design argue 
an adequate cause in an intelligent designer, and the nature of the 
moral power in man and of the moral government of the world is 
proof of the existence of a Moral Governor. " The invisible things 
of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being under- 
stood (j'oov/ieva) by the things that are made, even his eternal power 
and Godhead." Should it come to be thought that religion has only 
the sphere of the " unknown and unknowable," I am sure it would 
disappear from our world as a living power. When the apostle beheld 
the altar with the inscription, " To the Unknown God," he hastened 
to proclaim a Known God: " Whom therefore ye ignorantly worship, 
him declare I unto you. God that made the world," etc. 

Mr. Spencer, in his Psychology, insists that we seek an Ultimate 
Datum or Postulate. He finds such a Postulate in Belief. He does 
not very distinctly explain what is involved in belief. He says 
(p. 14) that " belief is the recognition of existence." If he had left 
out the re as implying something prior brought back, and said cog- 
nition, his statement would have been correct. Again, he says, 
" Every logical act of the intellect is a predication, is an assertion 
that something is, and this is what we call belief." I do not admit 
that all cognition is predication (see supra, p. 182), but taking his 
explanation, I ask my readers to consider how much is implied in 
this predication that something is, in this cognition of existence ; and 
the postulate, if it is not unmeaning, or if its meaning is not suicidal, 
must postulate all that is in it, must postulate existence and some- 
thing existing. I maintain, further, that a something can be known 
as existing only so far as we know it to be something, that is, know 
something of it, that is, know some quality of it. Setting out with 
something, I hold that all the consequences logically drawn also im- 
ply existence, and something existing with some quality. By such a 
process we find ourselves reaching further knowledge and other reali- 
ties. Mr. Spencer, quite in the spirit of the German speculatists, 
will admit only one ultimate postulate; what he calls belief. On the 
ground on which he calls in the one, I think, he is bound to admit 
others, — what I call beliefs and judgments, intellectual and moral. 
By these, and by ordinary observation, we rise to a God who is not 
an unknown God. 

He says (p. 28): " Not only is the invariable existence of a belief 



THE NESCIENCE THEORY. 335 

our sole warrant for every truth of immediate consciousness, and for 
every primary generalization of the truths of immediate conscious- 
ness, every axiom, but it is our sole warrant for every demonstra- 
tion." There is surely some confusion of statement here. I will 
not insist on the circumstance that generalization must imply a dis- 
cursive process. I remark upon the princii)le that invariable ex- 
istence is the warrant of the truths of immediate consciousness. I 
should rather say, that the belief invariably exists, since we have in 
sense-perception and self-consciousness the object before us, and we 
perceive it. According to Mr. Spencer (p. 27), " In the proposition 
' I am,' no one who utters it can find any proof but the invariable 
existence of the belief in it." I should rather say, that the belief is 
so invariable since all men have invariably the object self under their 
view. Mr. Spencer lays down the further principle (p. 26), " The 
inconceivability of its negation is the test by which we ascertain 
whether a given belief invariably exists or not ; " and then in the 
application he uses the word " conceiving " (with its derivatives) in 
all its various meanings, as imaging, apprehending in a notion, know- 
ing, believing, judging. He says acutely, in criticising Hume (p. 49), 
" For what is contained in the concept, — an impression? Translate 
the word into thought, and there are manifestly involved a thing im- 
pressing and a thing impressed. It is impossible to attach any idea 
to the word save by the help of these two other ideas." Now, I ask 
him to translate in the same manner his own language, and it will 
imply a thing cognizing, and an existing thing cognized. Negation 
may no doubt be used as a test, but it is a secondary one, throwing 
us back on the primary one of self-evidence; and the negation used 
as a test must not be of conception, but the impossibility of not know- 
ing when the primitive conviction is a cognition, of not believing 
when it is a belief, and of not judging in a particular way when it is 
a comparison. Such tests carry us on from primary knowledge to 
further knowledge, embracing the existence of God. 

It does not concern us in this treatise to examine Mr. Spencer's 
ambitious attempt to explain the formation of the present state of the 
cosmos, by means of an unknown Infinite necessitated by thought, 
and certain forces. It could easily be shown that there are tremendous 
chasms in the process which he has unfolded. The forces which he 
is oblige<l to postulate may so far account for certain physical phe- 
nomena, such as the size, shape, and movements of the planets. But 
they give no explanation of sensation, or emotion, or consciousness, 
or belief, or intuition, or judgment, or the sense of beauty, or reason- 



336 ONTOLOGY. 

ing, or desire, or volition. Great as are the author's intellectual 
powers, he has attempted a task far beyond them, — I believe beyond 
human capacity, certainly far beyond it at the present stage of sci- 
ence. The attempt by this giant mind to reach an unapproachable 
height, by heaping Ossa on Pelion, must turn out a lamentable 
failure. This in regard to his theory as a whole; but his bold gen- 
eralizations are always suggestive, and some of them may in the end 
be established as the profoundest laws of the knowable universe. 



BOOK IV. 

METAPHYSICS IN THE VARIOUS SCIENCES. 
CHAPTER I. 

METAPHYSICS IN THE COMMON AFFAIRS OF LIFE. 

The act of breathing does not make us physiologists. 
Nor does the use of First Principles make us metaphysi- 
cians. Just as we all use physiological, so do we also 
employ metaphysical principles without being conscious 
of it. Our primitive cognitions, beliefs, and judgments 
are involved in what we think and do from day to day 
and from hour to hour, almost from minute to minute of 
our waking existence. 

We assume that we are in space and move in it. 
We act on the principle that the shortest distance be- 
tween two points is a straight line. The farmer does 
not attempt to close in a field by two straight lines. 
We carry with us a conviction of our personality. We 
trust our memories and believe in the continuity of time 
and can find no limit to it. We proceed on the being 
and identity of objects, especially our personal identity. 
We are constantly separating parts and combining them 
into wholes. We delight to discover resemblances and 
to view things in classes. We are ever comparing the 
sizes of objects and observing their proportions. We de- 
light to notice the activities of things, and we perceive 
that they influence us and have power over each other. 
Whenever we will to take a step in walking or to utter 



338 METAPHYSICS IN THE VARIOUS SCIENCES. 

a sound, we are employing the principle of cause and 
effect. 

Our consciences are constantly guiding and guarding 
us, in doing this honest and declining this base transac- 
tion. When we talk, or when we write, there is a con- 
straint constantly laid upon us by the principle that we 
should speak the truth. In our money transactions we 
are bound by the fixed principle of honesty. On seeing 
a human being in distress, the royal law of love requires 
that we hasten to relieve him. Our moral nature, follow- 
ing the law of love regulated by law, insists on our con- 
stantly showing kindness to our families, our friends, 
and neighbors. 

All this does not show that we are metaphysicians, 
but it proves that we are constantly exercising qualities 
which the metaphysician should observe. 



CHAPTER II. 

THE METAPHYSICS OP PHYSICS. 

We have heard of the man in the French play who 
was amazed to find that he had been speaking prose all 
his life without knowing it. I believe that in like man- 
ner physicists are constantly using metaphysics without 
having the least suspicion of it ; many of them would 
indignantly repel the charge, if brought against them. 

The physical sciences must ever be conducted in the 
method of induction, with sense and artificial instruments 
as the agents of observations. But it has often been re- 
marked that all scientific investigation, indeed all inquiry, 
if pursued sufiiciently far down, conducts into mystery, 
often into insoluble problems. It will be found that 
tnese are the underlying regulative principles which the 
metaphysician should seek, if not to explain, at least to 
express. It is not the special business of the physical 
sciences to inquire into the nature or guarantee of ulti- 
mate truths. This work it leaves very properly to meta- 
physicians, who should be prepared to announce laws of 
intuition on which the physicist might rest, when he 
finds himself sinking too far down. They might be 
more profitably employed in such a work, which lies 
exclusively in their own province, than in pursuing wild 
speculative ends, which can never be attained by human 
reason. 

The powers in nature are so distributed and arranged 
that they issue in order, in respect of such qualities as 
space, time, quantity, and energy. To these mathema- 
tics can be successfully applied, and they come in with 



340 METAPHYSICS IN THE VARIOUS SCIENCES. 

all their axioms and demonstrations, which are seen to 
be true at once, as will be shown in a later chapter. 
Thus both in statics and dynamics, in certain depart- 
ments of mechanics, astronomy, optics, and thermotics, 
we come down in the last resort to truths which are 
beneath physics, and within metaphysics. 

Most, if not all, of our intuitive convictions, have a 
place in the foundation of the deeper physical sciences. 
Thus the conviction as to the identity of being leads us 
to chase the substance through the various forms it may 
assume, and constrains those who are most opposed to 
hypotheses to speak of ultimate atoms or molecules. 
The intuition of whole and parts constrains us to look 
on the abstract as implying the concrete, and prompts 
us to seek for all the parts which make up the whole. 
Our intuition as to classes insists that the species make 
up the genus. Our primitive perceptions as to space 
make the physicist certain, when he sees a body now in 
one place, and then in another, that it must have passed 
through the whole intermediate space. They should 
prevent him from giving his adherence to the theory that 
matter consists merely of points of force ; the points 
cannot, properly speaking, be unextended, and there 
must always be a space between them. Our belief as to 
time assures us that there can be no break in its flow, 
and that when we fall in with the same object at two 
different times, it must have existed the whole interven- 
ing period. Our intuitive cognitions of number, quan- 
tity, and proportion guide and control us more or less 
formally in all departments of natural philosophy. Our 
conviction as to substance and property prompts the phy- 
sicist, when he discovers a new object, to inquire after its 
properties, and on perceiving the action of such agencies 
as magnetism, electricity, and galvanism, to declare that 



THE METAPHYSICS OF PHYSICS. 341 

tliey must be either separate substances (not prob- 
able), or properties of substances. Causation appears in 
nearly every department of science. 

There are sciences which have special primitive truths 
underlying them. Thus chemistry involves throughout 
our conviction as to substance and property. There is 
a class of sciences which proceeds on resemblances and 
deals with things in classes. They have been called the 
" Classifioatory Sciences " by Whewell, and embrace 
botany, zoology, and mineralogy so far as it is not a 
branch of chemistry, and geology so far as it deals with 
organisms. In all these the mind is guided and guarded 
by our cognitions in regard to the relations of indi- 
viduals and classes. Power, force, energy, causation op- 
erate in almost all physical sciences, in electric, magnetic, 
and galvanic action, which all imply power ; in geology, 
as it treats of the forces which have brought the earth's 
surface to its present state ; in physiology which looks 
at the powers which, work in the organism. It is the 
reigning determinant in mechanics and in the old nat- 
ural philosophy now called physics. 

The physical investigator, engrossed with external 
facts, and seeking to throw light upon them, will seldom 
so much as notice these underlying principles, which are 
unconsciously guiding him, and only on rare occasions 
will he make a formal appeal to them. Still there will 
be times when those most prejudiced against metaphysics 
of every kind will be tempted or compelled to fall back 
upon them, — when diving down into the depths of a deep 
subject, or when hard pressed by an opponent. It often 
happens that when they do so, their expression of the 
principle is awkward and blundering ; and I think they 
have reason to complain of the metaphysician that he 
has been wasting his ingenuity in unprofitable and un- 



342 METAPHYSICS IN THE VARIOUS SCIENCES. 

attainable pursuits, and has done so little to aid physical 
investigation in a line in which he might have lent it 
effective and profitable aid. 

It has been shown by Dr. Whewell, in his work on the Philosophy 
of the Inductive Sciences, more particularly in his History of Scientific 
Ideas, that each kind of science has its special fundamental idea at its 
basis, and he classifies the sciences according to the ideas which reg- 
ulate them. The phrase ' ' ideas ' ' does not seem a good one to ex- 
press the intuitive convictions of the mind, either in their sponta- 
neous exercises or formal enunciations, and I think he is altogether 
wrong in supposing that these ideas "superinduce" on the facts 
something not in the facts. But he has in that work developed 
truths, which physical investigators were almost universally over- 
looking. 



CHAPTER III. 

THE METAPHYSICS OF MATHEMATICS. 

Mathematics is not a metaphysical science. But 
it proceeds by definitions and axioms in both of which 
metaphysics are involved (a). 

I look upon definitions, or rather the things defined, 
as constituting, properly speaking, the foundation of 
mathematics. They seem to me to be formalized primi- 
tive cognitions or beliefs in regard to quantity, to which 
some add position ; and they specially bear upon exten- 
sion and number. In their formation there is involved 
a process of abstraction from material objects presenting 
themselves. A point is defined "position without magni- 
tude." There is no such point ; there can be no such point. 
A line is " length without breadth ; " there was never 
such a line drawn by pen or diamond point. But the 
mind in analysis is sharper than steel or diamond. It 
can contemplate position without taking extension into 
view. It can reason about the length of a line without 
regarding the breadth. In all definitions there is abstrac- 
tion, but I must forever protest against the idea that an 
abstraction is necessarily unreal. If the concrete is real 
the attribute or part of it is also real. The position of 
the point is a reality, and so also is the length of a line ; 
they are not independent realities, and capable of exist- 
ing alone and apart, but still they are realities, and when 
the mind contemplates them separately, it contemplates 
realities. So far as it reasons about them accurately, 
according to the laws of thought, the conclusions arrived 



344 METAPHYSICS IN THE VARIOUS SCIENCES. 

at will also be real, the reality being of the same nature 
with that of the premise. Thus, whatever conclusions 
are reached in regard to lines, circles, or ellipses will 
apply to all objects having length, or a circular, or ellip- 
tic form. We find, in fact, that the conclusions of math- 
ematics do hold true of all bodies in earth or sky, so far 
as we find them occupying space or having numerical 
relations. 

Looking not just at the definitions, but at the things 
defined under the clear and distinct aspects in which 
they are set before it by abstraction, the mind discov- 
ers relations and can draw deductions. It finds that A 
is equal to B, and B to C, and it at once concludes that 
A is equal to C. In doing this it proceeds on a princi- 
ple, and this when generalized becomes the axiom that 
" things which are equal to the same thing are equal to 
one another." The reasoning in such cases appears clear, 
anterior to the general principle being announced, and 
when the principle is expressed it does not seem to add 
to the force of the ratiocination. It does not in fact add 
to the cogency of the argument ; it is merely the expres- 
sion of the general principle on which it proceeds. Still 
it serves many important scientific purposes. Locke and 
Stewart, who do not set high value on axioms, admit that 
it is of great importance to have the general truth ex- 
pressed formally in an axiom. It allows the reflective 
mind to dwell on the general law regulating the spon- 
taneous conviction ; by its clearness it enables us to test 
the ratiocination, and it shows what those must be pre- 
pared to disprove who would dispute or deny the con- 
clusion. 

If this view be correct, the abstracted cognitions or 
beliefs which constitute the definitions form the proper 
foundation of mathematical demonstration, while the 



THE METAPHYSICS OF MATHEMATICS. 345 

axioms being the generalizations of our primitive judg- 
ments, on looking at the things defined, are the links 
which bind together the parts of the superstructure 
added Qb'). 

The question is keenly agitated as to axioms whether 
they are or are not the generalizations of experience. It 
will be found here, as in so many other questions which 
have passed before us, that there is truth on both sides, 
and error on both sides, and confusion in the whole con- 
troversy, which is to be cleared by an exact account of the 
mental operation involved informing the judgment. The 
mathematical axiom is not a mere generalization of an 
outward or a gathered experience. It is not by trying two 
straight rods, ten, twenty, or a thousand times, that we 
arrive at the general proposition that two straight lines 
cannot enclose a space, and thence conclude as to two 
given lines presented anywhere to us that it is impossible 
they should enclose a space. It is certainly not by placing 
two rods parallel to each other, and lengthening them 
more and more, and then measuring their distance to see 
if they are approaching, that we reach the axiom that 
two parallel lines will never meet, and thence be con- 
vinced as to any given set of like lines that they will never 
come nearer each other. Place before us two new sub- 
stances, and we cannot tell beforehand whether they will 
or will not chemically combine ; but on the bare contem- 
plation of two straight lines, we declare they cannot con- 
tain a space ; and of two parallel lines, that they can 
never meet (c). 

In mathematical truth, the mind, upon the objects 
being presented to its contemplation, at once and in- 
tuitively pronounces the judgment. It conceives two 
straight lines, and decides that they cannot be made to 
enclose a space. But it would pronounce the same de- 



346 METAPHYSICS IN THE VARIOUS SCIENCES. 

cision as to any other, as to every other pair of straight 
lines, and thus reaches the maxim that what is true of 
these two lines is true of all. There is thus generaliza- 
tion in the formation of the axiom, but it is a generaliz- 
ation of the individual intuitive judgments of the mind. 
Hence arises the distinction between the axioms of math- 
ematics and the general laws reached by observation. 
If we have properly generalized the individual convic- 
tion, the necessity that is in the individual goes up into 
the general, which embraces all the individuals, and the 
axiom is necessarily true, and true to all beings. But 
we can never be sure that there may not somewhere be 
an exception to experiential laws. We are sure that 
two straight lines cannot enclose a space in any planet, 
or star, or world, that ever existed or shall exist ; but 
it is quite possible that there may be horned animals 
which are not ruminant, or white crows in some of the 
planets ; and that there may come a time when the sun 
shall no longer give heat or light. 

In the case of our intuitive convictions regarding 
space, number, and quantity, the simplicity of the objects 
makes it easy for us to seize the principle, and to put it 
in proper formulae, which can scarcely fail to be accu- 
rately made. Hence these convictions came to be ex- 
pressed in general forms — in what were then called 
Common Notions — at a very early age of the history of 
intellectual culture. The disputes among mathemati- 
cians in regard to axioms relate not to their certainty 
and universality, but to the forms in which they ought 
to be put, and as to whether what some regard as first 
truths may not be demonstrated from prior truths. Such, 
for instance, is the dispute as to how the axioms and 
demonstrations as to parallel lines should be best con- 
structed. But in regard to our convictions of extension, 



THE METAPHYSICS OF MATHEMATICS. 347 

number, and quantity, it is not difiBcult to gather the 
regulating principle out of the individual judgments. It 
is different with other of our original convictions, such 
as those which relate to cause and effect ; the greater 
complexity of the objects renders it more difficult to seize 
on the principle involved, and there is greater room 
for dispute as to any given formula whether it is an 
exact expression of the facts. We see the reason why 
we cannot have demonstration in such sciences as physics 
and ethics ; it is because of the concreteness and com- 
plexity of the objects. The problem of " three bodies " 
has been found a difficult one ; how much more perplex- 
ing must be one in which there are a considei-able num- 
ber and variety of concrete things to be considered. . 

(a) It has been shown by Kant that the axioms of geometry 
are synthetic and not analytic judgments. Thus, in the axiom, 
" Two straight lines cannot enclose a space," the predication that 
"they cannot enclose a space," is not contained in the bare notion 
of " two straight lines." Starting with axioms wliich involve more 
than analytic judgments, we are reaching throughout the demonstra- 
tion more than identical truth. The propositions in the Books of 
Euclid are all evolved out of the definitions and axioms, but are not 
identical with them, or with one another (Kridk, p. 145). Dr. Man- 
sel {Proleg. Log. 2d ed. p. 103) maintains that such axioms as that 
" Things which are equal to the same are equal to each other '' are 
analytic. But does not this confound equality with identity ? D. 
Stewart remarks (Elem. Vol. ii. Chap, ii.) that most of the writers 
who have maintained that all mathematical evidence resolves ulti- 
mately into the perception of identity "have imposed on themselves 
by using the words identity and equality as literally synonymous and 
convertible terms. This does not seem to be at all consistent, either 
in point of expression or fact, with sound logic." Certain modern 
logicians have fallen into ^ still greater confusion, when thoy make 
the relation between subject and predicate merely one of identity or 
of equality. The proposition "Man is mortal" is not interpreted 
fully when it is said "Man is identical with some mortal," or that 
"All men = some mortals." By all means let logicians use symbols, 



348 METAPHYSICS IN THE VARIOUS SCIENCES. 

but let them devise symbols of their own, and not turn to a new 
use the symbols of mathematics, which have a meaning, and a well- 
defined one, simply as applied to quantity, and should not be made 
to signify the relations of extension and comprehension in logical 
propositions. 

(i) There is truth, then, in a statement of D. Stewart: "The 
doctrine which I have been attempting to establish, so far from de- 
grading axioms from that rank which Dr. Reid would assign them, 
tends to identify them still more than he has done, with the exercise 
of our reasoning powers ; inasmuch as, instead of comparing them 
with the data, on the accuracy of which that of our conclusion neces- 
sarily depends, it considers them as the vincula which give coherence 
to all the particular links of the chain ; or (to vary the metaphor) 
as component elements, without which the faculty of reasoning is in- 
conceivable and impossible " (Eleni. Vol. ii. Chap. i.). 

If this view be correct, we see how inadequate is the representa- 
tion of those who, like D. Stewart and Mr. J. S. Mill, represent 
mathematical definitions as merely hypothetical, and represent the 
whole consistency and necessity as being between a supposition and 
the consequences drawn from it. This is to overlook the concrete 
cognitions or beliefs from which the definition is derived. It is like- 
wise to overlook the fact that these refer to objects, and the further 
fact that the abstractions from the concretes also imply a reality. 
This theory also fails to account for the circumstance that the con- 
clusions reached in mathematics admit of an application to the set- 
tlement of so many questions in astronomy, and in other departments 
of natural philosophy. Thus, what was demonstrated of the conic 
sections by Apollonius is found true in the orbits of the planets 
and comets, as revealed by modern discovery. All this can at once 
be explained if we suppose that the mind starts with cognitions and 
beliefs, that it abstracts from these, and discovers relations among 
the things thus abstracted : the reality that was in the original con- 
viction goes on to the farthest conclusion. 

(c) Mr. Mill maintains (^Logic, ii. v. 4, 5) that the proposition, 
"Two straight lines cannot enclose a space," is a generalization 
from observation, "an induction from the evidence of the senses." 
That observation is needed I have shown in this treatise ; but there 
is intuition in the observation. That there is generalization in the 
general maxim 1 have also shown ; but it is not a gathering of out- 
ward instances. Observation can of itself tell us that these two 
lines before us do not enclose a space, and that any other couplets of 



THE METAPHYSICS OF MATHEMATICS. 349 

lines examined by us, twenty, or a hundred, or a thousand, do not 
enclose a space ; but experience can say no more without passing 
beyond its jn-ovince. An intellectual generalization of such experi- 
ence might allow us to affirm that very probably no two lines enclose 
a space on the earth, but could never entitle us to maintain that two 
lines could not enclose a space in the constellation Orion. Mr. Mill, 
in order to account for the necessity which attaches to such convic- 
tions, refers to the circumstance that geometrical forms admit of 
being distinctly painted in the imagination, so that we have " mental 
pictui-es of all possible combinations of lines and angles." We 
might ask him what he makes of algebraic and analytic demonstra- 
tions of every kind, where there is no such power of imagination 
and yet the same necessity. But without dwelling on this I would 
have it remarked, that in the very theory which he devises to show 
that the whole is a process of experience, he is appealing to what no 
experience can ever compass, " to all possible combinations of lines 
and angles." Intuitive thought, proceeding on intuitive perceptions 
of space, may announce laws of the '^possible combinations" of geo- 
metrical figures ; but this cannot be done by observation, by sense, or 
imagination. Supposing, he says, that two straight lines, after diverg- 
ino-, could again converge, " we can transport ourselves thither in 
imagination, and can frame a mental image of the appearance which 
one or both of the lines must present at that point, which we may rely 
on as being precisely similar to the reality." Most freely do I admit 
all this. We may "rely " on it, but surely it is not experience, nor 
imagination, but thought looking at things which tells us what must 
be at that point, and that it is a " reality." The very line of re- 
mark which he is pursuing might have shown him that the discovery 
of necessary spatial and quantitative relations is a judgment in 
which the mind looks upon objects intuitively known, and now pre- 
sented, or more frequently represented to the mind. 



CHAPTER IV. 

THE METAPHYSICS OP FORMAL LOGIC. 

Metaphysics and Logic are to be carefully distin- 
guished. The former deals with First Principles, of 
which it seeks to give an account. The latter treats of 
the laws of Discursive Thought, in which we proceed 
from something given or allowed to something derived 
from it by thinking. The two, though separate, have 
points of connection. There are primitive truths at the 
basis of secondary or discursive processes. It is part of 
the office of Metaphysics to unfold and express these. 

Logic deals with the Notion, the Proposition, and 
Reasonhig. Each of these involves principles which are 
perceived to be true on the bare contemplation of the 
notions. Thus the Abstract implies the Concrete, and 
the Universal implies Singulars. Logic should take up 
these principles, explain, and apply them. 

Logic deals with the Proposition, which may be Affir- 
mative or Negative, Universal or Particular. In the 
logical use of the proposition there are involved the laws 
of Identity, of Contradiction, and Excluded Middle, as 
explained under the primitive judgment of Identity. 

Reasoning may be in Extension or Comprehension. 
Each of these has its fundamental laws. The regulative 
principle of reasoning in Extension is the Dictum of 
Aristotle, " Whatever is true of a class is true of each 
member of the class." The regulating principle of rea- 
soning in Comprehension is attributive, " All that is in an 
attribute is in the thing that contains the attribute," or 



THE METAPHYSICS OF FORMAL LOGIC. 351 

as Leibnitz expresses it, " Nota notae est nota rei ipsius." 
All these are self-evident. The metaphysician should 
supply these to the logician, who takes up and applies 
them to the various forms of reasoning, Categorical, 
Hypothetical, and Disjunctive. In doing this a science 
has been constructed which I regard as the most perfect, 
next to geometry. 



CHAPTER V. 

METAPHYSICS OF ETHICS. 

This is the title of a work by Kant, who is much more 
realistic in his moral than in his speculative philosophy, 
and thereby has reached a larger amount of truth. 

Ethics is in every respect an analogous science to 
Logic. The difference lies in the difference of the mat- 
ters with which they deal, the one aiming to find the 
laws of discursive truth, the other the nature of moral 
good ; the one seeking to attain its end by generalizing 
the operations of thought, the other by generalizing 
the exercises of the motive and moral powers of man. 
Ethics, like Logics, is in a sense an a priori science ; it 
finds and it employs principles which are valid, inde- 
pendent of our experience. In another sense, it is a pos- 
teriori, inasmuch as these principles and their laws can 
be discovered by us only through observation of their in- 
dividual manifestations ; and thus far it is dependent on 
an inductive psychology. We must begin with inquir- 
ing, Quid est ? and then we find that the thing reached 
relates to the Quid oportet ? It is the special oflfice of 
ethics to ascertain what is involved in the oportet, and 
apply its formulae to the conduct of responsible beings. 

Ethics is not to be regarded as a branch of metaphys- 
ics, nor should metaphysics profess to be able to construct 
ethics. But metaphysics should supply to ethics some of 
its fundamental principles. These should be accepted, 
clearly enunciated, and applied in ethics, but the special 
discussion of them should be left to the more fundamen- 



METAPHYSICS OF ETHICS. 353 

tal science. I have endeavored to give a summary of the 
primary truths with -which ethics should start. (Pp. 210- 
243.) They relate to moral good or virtue, which is the 
royal law of love, to its obligation, its relation to God 
and law, to its desert and relation to happiness, and its 
voluntary character. 

But a science of ethics, in order to serve useful pur- 
pose, cannot be constructed from the mere native convic- 
tions of the mind. We do obtain a few most important 
general principles from this source exclusively, and 
these underlie the whole science, and bear up every part 
of it. But in order to serve the ends intended by it, 
ethics must settle what are the duties of different classes 
of persons, according to the relation in which they stand to 
each other, such as rulers and subjects, parents and chil- 
dren, masters and servants, and society in general ; and 
what the path which individuals should follow in certain 
circumstances, — it may be, very diflELcult and perplex- 
ing. In consequence of the affairs of human life being 
very complicated, demonstration can be carried but a 
very little way in ethics. In order to be able to enun- 
ciate general principles for our guidance, or to promul- 
gate useful precepts, the ethical inquirer must condescend 
to come down from his d priori heights to the level in 
which mankind live and walk and work. Even in the 
most practical departments of ethical science, the grand 
fundamental laws of our moral constitution must ever be 
the guiding principles, but we have to consider their ap- 
plication to a,n almost infinite variety of earthly posi- 
tions and human character. 

Of all the sciences, ethics is that which comes into 
closest relationship with Christianity and the Word of 
God. The reason is obvious. It deals with the law and 
the very character of God ; it deals with man as under 



354 METAPHYSICS IN THE VARIOUS SCIENCES. 

law, and with man as having broken the law. It thus pre- 
pares us, if it faithfully fulfils its functions, to believe in 
a religion which shows us how the sinner can be recon- 
ciled to God. When the great doctrine of the Atone- 
ment is embraced, a new and most important element is 
introduced into ethics. It should no longer be a science 
constructed, on the one hand, for pure beings, nor, on 
the *other, for persons who must ever be kept at a dis- 
tance from God. This new reconciling and gracious ele- 
ment turns Pagan into Christian ethics ; it turns a cold 
and legal, into a warm and evangelical obedience. 

Locke thought moral philosophy could be made a demonstrative 
science founded on intuition, to which he gave an important place as 
able to perceive at once the relation of certain ideas (Essay B. iv. 
17). I am not aware that any one has attempted thoroughly to carry 
out this view. Morality, like truth, has certainly self-evidence or 
demonstrative principles as several other sciences have. But these 
varied applications to actual life are so complicated that the human 
mind (whatever an angelic mind might do) cannot follow them de- 
ductively. 



CHAPTER VI. 

THE METAPHYSICS OF THEOLOGY. 

Theology, as a science, is a systematized arrangement 
of what we can know about God. Natural theology is 
the science of what we know of him from his works in 
nature, and Biblical of what is revealed in the Old and 
New Testaments. 

People have ever shrunk from a theology which is 
exclusively or even mainly metaphysical. Yet first prin- 
ciples have their deep underlying place in systematic 
divinity as in every deeper science. Unfortunately they 
are often mixed up with observational principles and 
practical lessons in a hetei'ogeneous manner. When they 
are argumentatively employed or appealed to in theologi- 
cal discussion, they should be so distinctly enunciated 
that all may see what they are, and be in a position to 
judge of their validity. Metaphysics may help and not 
hinder theology by bringing out to view the fundamen- 
tal truths involved in the science. 

All the primary principles implied in the common 
affairs of life may be employed in the exposition of di- 
vine truth without being very formally expressed. We 
may proceed on the allowed existence of bodies, of space 
and time, of the laws of quality and quantity, and the 
common logical laws, sucli as that of contradiction, with- 
out formulating them. But there are several metaphys- 
ical truths which have a special place in theological dis- 
cussion, and these should be specially expounded by the 
metaphysician for the use of the divine. 



S56 METAPHYSICS IN THE VifRIOUS SCIENCES. 

There is our Personality with our Personal Identity. 
The conviction attaches itself to us from the beginning 
and will go on to the end of our being in this world, 
and, if we have proof of our continued existence, in the 
world to come. If this does not insure, it makes us 
look towards, a personal immortality for which we seek 
proof. 

This Personality keeps us from flying up into an airy 
and unsubstantial pantheism : All is not one, for we 
know ourselves to be different from God, as he is differ- 
ent from us. 

There is Potency with Cause and Effect. We dis- 
cover traces of this world being an effect as an ordered 
world made up of many combined materials, a " man- 
ufactured " article, as Sir John Herscliel expresses it. 
We see everywhere order in earth and sky, ver}' specially 
in plants and animals. There is the wondrous adapta- 
tion of one thing to another in an aiTanged system ; and 
the order and adaptation being evidently of things 
effected, we argue legitimately that there must be a cause 
of the whole. Theologians do so argue, and metaphysics 
should justify them in so doing. Thus do we rise to an 
intelligence above nature : I do not say infinite, but far 
beyond our comprehension. Here we have one element 
of the theistic argument. 

But there are other effects. There are traces without 
and within us of a pervading and all-reigning benevo- 
lence. This requires us to clothe the intelligence which 
we have discovered with love. 

But we go farther. We have principles within us 
which constrain us to invest the intelligent and loving 
One who gave them to us with other perfections. We 
have personality, and we attribute a like perfection to 



THE METAPHYSICS OF THEOLOGY. 357 

him who is caring for us. Higher than all we have a 
moral nature, approving the good and disapproving the 
evil, and this must be a garment of his own which God 
has thrown over us. 

This is not all. We are led to ascribe to God an attri- 
bute to which we have nothing similar. We have an 
intuition as to infinity, which constrains us to believe 
in the reality which it reveals, and the mind is not sat- 
isfied till we ascribe it to the one living and true God 
whom we believe to be great beyond our comprehen- 
sion, but such that nothing can be added to him or his 
perfections. 

In some of these steps there is an observational ele- 
ment, but it is a powerful evidential one, which makes it 
possible for the fool to say in his heart that there is no 
God, and makes him responsible for his unbelief, which 
he could not be if the whole process were apodictic or 
demonstrative. 

The Jehovah of Scripture comprises in himself — in 
this respect how superior to tlie gods of the Gentiles — 
the high ideas which I have been seeking to unfold in 
this work. In Biblical Theology they are arranged and 
applied, and this is done most wisely when only such 
metaphysical principles are used as are implied in the 
common affairs of life and in all the sciences. 

We see at the close of our investigation that these 
fundamental truths bear up the other truths which we 
are required to believe in nature and in religion. We 
see, too, that our intuitions, like the works of nature, 
carry us up to God, their author. All the roads lead to 
the capital. All the streams come to us fi'om the foun- 
tain. All the members of the body are moved by the 
head. If we stop short of this we feel that there is 



358 METAPHYSICS IN THE VARIOUS SCIENCES. 

something wanting, effects without their cause, a road 
that conducts nowhere, a stream without a fountain, a 
body without a head. But mounting up thither, all our 
deeper instincts are satisfied, and we can look thence on 
our cosmos, and see that it has a stability and a consis- 
tency in Him in whom all things consist. 



INDEX. 



Abelard, 138. 

Abstract Notion, 197, 198. 

Academics, 81. 

^Esthetics, 2, 

Agnosticism, 7, 309. 

Analytic Judgiments, 193-195. 

Anselm, 82, 138. 

Aristotle, 2, 33, 36, 81, 125, 127, 174, 

245^261, 322. 
Attention, 233. 
Augustine, 82, 137. 
Axioms, 13, 28, 206, 276, 283, 345, 

349. 

Bacon, 26. 

Bain, 122, 189. 

Being, 67, 89, 92, 101, 118, 161, 293. 

Berkeley, 73, 74, 108, 109, 313. 

Brown, P., 328. 

Brown, T., 53, 73, 151, 215. 

Buddseus, 170. 

Buffier, 47, 98, 125. 

Calderwood, 139. 
Catholicity, 17. 
Cheselden Case, 64, 73. 
Clark, S., 20, 152, 322. 
Coleridge, 285. 
Conceive, 278, 282. 
Conscience, 217, 222. 
Cousin, 54, 290. 
Cudworth, 33, 291. 

Damascenus, Joannes, 149. 
Definitions, Mathematical, 343. 
Descartes, 15, 42, 59, 62, 86, 97. (Co- 

gito ergo sum), 106, 111, 125, 153, 

174. 
Desert, 224. 

Eleatics, 80, 111, 118, 244, 293. 
English Divines, 40, 138. 



Epicureans, 39, 81, 82. 
Ethics, 2, 217-243, 352-354. 
Extension, 69, 85, 121-123. 
ExternaUty, 68. 

Faith, 130-180, 268-270. 

Fathers of the Church, 327. 

Fender, 74, 320. 

Fichte, 25, 97, 138, 215, 313. 

Final Cause, 246, 252. 

Forms imposed on Objects, 28. 

Franz Case, 64, 127. 

Gillespie, 144. 

Hamilton, 46, 50, 53, 63, 73, 74, 76, 
82, 99, 100, 113, 137, 139, 151, 171, 
181, 183, 188, 189, 320, 32b. 

Hegel, 18, 25, 97, 113, 122. 

Heracleitos, 110. 

Herbert, 15, 39. 

Herschel, 152. 

Hobbes, 170. 

Howe, 173. 

Hume, 59, 89, 102, 173, 289. 

Hutcheson, 48. 

Huxley, 252. 

Idea, 259-262. 

Induction, 10, 271, 276. 

Innate Ideas, 15. 

Instinct, 27, 254. 

Intuition, 6, 7, 16, 19, 271-279. 

Jacobi, 138. 

Kant, 2, 15, 20, 28, 29, 32, 51, 73, 82, 
89, 97, 98, 102, 138, 143, 149, 151, 
189, 193, 214, 238, 247, 249, 285, 287, 
290, 313, 324, 347. 

Knowledge, 58, 256, 293. 

Knowledge and Faith, 130-140, IM. 



360 



INDEX. 



Knowledge, Presentative and Repre- 
sentative, 130-140, 256, 265. 

Law, 219, 276. 

Leibnitz, 18, 46, 87, 102, 152, 174, 195, 

246, 321. 
Locke, 15, 18, 28, 29, 43, 59, 74, 85, 

99, 102, 107, 125, 127, 170, 183, 188, 

189,. 249, 256-264. 
Logic, 2, 350. 
Lotze, 56. 

Love, 219, 333, 347. 
Lucretius, 151. 

Mackintosh, 224. 

Mansel, 97, 171, 173, 183, 327, 333, 347. 

Maxims, 13, 276. 

Mental Sciences, 2. 

MiU, J. S., 56, 129, 187, 214-216, 225, 

226, 328-332, 348. 
Miracles, 215, 216. 
Morel, 320. 
Motive, 237. 
Miiller, John, 65, 72, 123, 127. 

Necessity, 17, 278-284 
Nescience, 309, 332. 
Newton, 20, 149. 
NihUism, 309. 

Obligation, 221-223,-240. 

Perception, 12, 18, 75, 79. 
Perfect, The, 159-175. 
Personality, 90, 97, 356. 
Plato, 33, 34, 111, 245, 256. 
Power, 93, 102, 128, 129, 205. 
Pre-Socratic Schools, 34, 111, 244. 
Protagoras, 33. 

Qualities of Matter, Primary and 
Secondary, 78, 80, 85-87. 

Realism, 6, 29, 185, 275, 296. 



Reason, 28, 285, 291. 
Reflex Intuition, 14. 
Regulative Principles, 12, 18, 272. 
Reid, 48, 76, 85, 98, 213, 285. 
Relations, 185, 216. 
Responsibility, 237. 

Scepticism, 7. 

Schelling, 18, 25, 97. 

Scottish School, 18, 50, 89, 98. 

Self or Spirit, 82-99, 104. 

Self-Consciousness, 257. 

Self-Evidence, 16. 

Sensation, 75, 257. 

Sensational School, 59, 82. 

Senses, Apparent Deception of, 72-85. 

Shaftesbury, 47. 

Sin, 227-232, 241. 

Smith, Adam, 224. 

Socrates, 293. 

Sophists, 33. 

Spencer, H., 30, 56, 74, 249-255, 334- 

336. 
Spinoza, 25, 106, 111. 
Stewart, D., 52, 73, 98, 151, 213, 347, 

348. 
Stoics, 38, 81, 261. 
Synthetic Judgments, 193-195. 

Tennyson, 88. 
Trendelenburg, 151. 
Trinchinetti Case, 64. 

Understanding, 285. 
Uniformity of Nature, 213-215. 
Universals, 200. 

Virtue, 219. 

AVhately, 3. 
Whewell, 55, 341, 342. 
Wish, 233. 
Wolf, 246. 
Wordsworth, 159. 



THE COMPLETION OF DR. McCOSH'S PSYCHOLOGY. 



PSYCHOLOGY. 

I. The Cognitive Powers. II. The Motive Powers. 



By JAMES McCOSH, D.D., LLD, Litt. D. 

President of Princeton College ; Author of '^Intuitions of the Mind, " ' 'Laws 
of Discursive Thought" ''Emotions,''^ "Philosophic Series," etc. 

Two Vols., 12mo; each, $l.BO. 

The second volume, now ready, concludes this work with the 
discussion of the motive powers of the mind, including the Con- 
science, Emotions, and Will. The author has treated the difficult, 
and, at times, obscure topics which belong to the department of 
psychology with characteristic clearness, conciseness, and strong 
individuality. In the first volume he treats of sense perception, 
illustrating his theme with appropriate cuts, and discussing it 
with fullness from the physiological side. A third of the book is 
devoted to the reproductive or representative powers, in which 
such subjects as the recalling powei", the association of ideas, the 
power of composition, etc., are described; while the book con- 
cludes with a full discussion of the comparative powers. 

EXTRACT PROM THE INTRODUCTION OF VOLUME U, 

"Having treated of the Cognitive Powers in Vol. I., I am in this to 
unfold the characteristics of the Motive Powers, as they are called the 
Orective, the Appetent, the Impulsive Powers ; the feelings, the senti- 
ments, the affections, the heart, as distinguished from the Gnostic, the 
cognitive, the intellect, the understanding, the reason, the head, 

"These Motive Powers fall under three heads — the Emotions, the Con- 
science, the Will. 

" It is not to be understood that these are unconnected with each other, 
or with the cognitive; emotions contain an idea which is cognitive. The 
Conscience may be regarded as combining characteristics of each of the 
two grand classes, being cognitive as discerning good and evil, and motive 
as leading to action; the Will has to use the other powers as going on to 
action. 

" Emotion occupies more room than the other two in this treatise inas- 
much as its operations are more varied, and as the account usually given 
of it (so it appears to me) is more defective." 



McCOSH'S PSYCHOLOGY. 



AUTHORITATIVE ENDORSEMENTS. 



" I have read the book with much interest. It is what was to have been ex- 
pected from the ability and long experience of the author. The style is clear and 
simple ; the matter is well distributed ; it well covers the ground usually taught in 
such text-books, and I am sure any teacher would find it a helpful guide in his 
classes. The philosophical opinions of the venerable author are well known and are 
here lucidly stated. The President has long been a successful teacher and knows 
how to make a useful text-book," — S. L. Caldwell, late President of Vassar College. 

" In examining the Psychology of the Cognitive Powers by Dr. McCosh, I have 
been most favorably impressed by the strength and ability with which the subject 
is treated and especially by the skillful adaptation of the work to the needs of 
students." — O. Cone, President of Bwchtel College, Akron, O. 

"For the past two months I have been teaching the senior class of this Institu- 
tion Dr. McCosh's new work on Psychology. I have never had a class in Psychology 
that became so quickly interested in a text on that subject. The style of the author 
is remarkably clear, concise, and forcible, and at once arrests the attention and 
holds the interest of a student to the subject. As a text-book it is a work of rare 
value" {October 23d). — W, H. H. Adams, President of Illinois Wesleyan Uriversity. 

"Literature and Philosophy can equally profit by a work which we think we 
can point out as the most complete a d broad ever written on the subject." — 
Professor Ferri. 

"The qualities in the book that led me to introduce it are : 1st. That it is by a 
recognized authority upon the subject, one who perhaps in this department has no 
living superior. 2d. That he is a clear and emphatic realist. 3d. That the style is 
not difficult for beginners. 4th. That the book was neither too large nor too small 
for our purpose. 5th. That the discussion of the subject is fresh, introducing more 
of the relation between Physiology and Psychology than is found in the other 
books, thus bringing it abreast of current thought upon the subject." — D. J. 
Waller, Jr., Principal of State Normal School, Bloomsburg, Pa. 

'I am pleased with the plan and method of treatment. I have in use- 



Mental Science, but my class complain of its abstruse style, and if on further exami- 
nation of Dr. McCosh's I continue to be pleased, as I think I shall, I will propose a 
change to the class {September 28th). Having examined Dr. McCosh's Psj-chology, 
I have concluded to change my text-book, and introduce McCosh. I am much 
pleased with its arrangement and treatment of the subject ; its style is clear and its 
illustrations are very satisfactory" {October 5th). — Charles Martin, Principal of 
Young Ladies^ Institute, St, Joseph, Mo. 

"1 find it admirably adapted for school work, being conservative in its treat- 
ment as well as antagonistic to materialism and scepticism, and clear in its state- 
ments ; hence quite suitable for young men as a text-book." — Washington Catlett, 
Principal of Cape Fear Academy, Wilm,ington, N. C. 

" The book is written in a clear and simple style ; it breathes a sweet and win- 
ning spirit ; and it is inspired by a noble purpose, in these respects it is a model of 
what a text-book should be." — Professor William De W. Hyde, of Bowdoin College. 

*:):* Application for examination copies and correspondence in regard to terms for 
introduction are requested from teachers desiring to select a teoct-book in 
mental science. 



CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS, Publishers, 
745 and ^4^ Broadway, New York. 



Realistic Philosophy, 

DEFENDED IN A PHILOSOPHIC SERIES 
By JAMES McCOSH, D.D., LLD., 

President of Princeton College. 



Taato Vols., 12mo; each $1.50. 



In these two volumes Dr. McCosh has collected his discussions 
of the principal philosophic questions of the day, formerly issued 
in his Philosophic Series, which, The Independent says, '4s not 
unlikely to prove in the end the most useful popular service 
which Dr. McCosh has rendered to the cause of right thinking 
and to sound philosophy of life." 

VOL. I.— EXPOSITORY. 
It' 
In this part of the Series the principal philosophic questions of the day 
are discussed, including the Tests of Truth, Causation, Development, and 
the Character of our World. 

General Introduction. — What an American Philosophy should he. 

I. Criteria op Diverse Kinds of Truth. 

II. Energy, Efficient and Final Cause. An attempt is here made 
to clear up the subject of Causation which has become considerably con- 
fused. 

III. Development, What it can do and What it cannot do. 
Development is here presented so as to show that it is not opposed to 
religion, and that the conclusions drawn from it by some of its defenders 
are not legitimate. 

rv. Certitude, Providence, and Prayer, with an inquiry as to what 
is the character of our world, showing that it is neither optimist nor pessi- 
mist, but going on toward perfection. 

VOL. II.— HISTORICAL. 

In this part the same questions are treated historically. The systems of 
the philosophers who have discussed them are stated and examined, and 
the truth and error in each of them carefully pointed out. 
General Introduction. — Realism; its place in the various Philosophies. 

I. Locke's Theory op Knowledge, with a notice of Berkeley. It is 
shown that Locke held by a body of truth, and that he has often been 
misunderstood ; but that he has not by his experience theory laid a sure 
foundation of knowledge, 

II. Agnosticism of Hume and Huxley, with a notice of the Scottish 
School. It is necessary to examine Hume's Scepticism, but it is best to 
do so in the defense of it by Huxley. 

III. A Criticism of the Critical Philosophy showing that Kant 
has stated and defended most important truths, but has undermined 
knowledge, by naaking the mind begin with appearances and not with 
things. 

IV. Herbert Spencer's Philosophy as culminating in his Ethics. 
TTere there will be a careful examination of his physiological utilitarianism. 



REALISTIC PHILOSOPHY. 



CRITICAL NOTICES. 



' ' No thinker of our time commands a more ready or more general hearing 
than the President of Princeton College. Conviction, clearness, and 
earnestness are apparent in his advocacy of the future philosophy of this 
country. And these give, even to this subtle and sUppery subject, a 
freshness and vigor which make the volumes far from dry and barren 
reading." — Bishop Hurst, in Northwestern Christian Advocate. 

" Eminently cogent and instructive volumes designed for exposition and 
defense of fundamental truths. The distinct but correlated subjects are 
treated with equal simplicity and power, and cover in brief much of the 
ground occupied by larger publications, together with much on independ- 
ent lines of thought that lie outside their plan." — Harper^ s Magazine. 

" The effect of the discussion is to reduce his own thought to its lowest 
terms, and to disentangle it from surplus and irrelevant matter. The 
readers of Dr. McCosh's pamphlets will in this way reap the benefit of the 
author's earlier and more elaborate consideration of the same topics. An 
adherent, though not a servile adherent, of the Scottish school, he has 
brought to his inquiries for many years the best powers of a clear and 
vigorous intellect and of a mind well-informed in the history of specula- 
tion." . . . — N. Y. Tribune. 

' ' Its style is so clear and direct, its presentation of the whole subject is 
so natural and forcible, that many persons who habitually ignore dis- 
cusssions of abstract topics would be charmed into a new intellectual 
interest by giving Dr. McCosh's work a careful consideration." — N. Y, 
Observer. 

" The two volumes illustrate in the highest degree two kinds of excel- 
lence — ^the merit of masterly statement and of acute criticism. This is 
not a controversial dissertation, but a clear and profound statement of the 
facts and laws of intellectual and moral being as they bear directly on 
the question of spiritual knowledge or the basis of faith. Dr. McCosh has 
the happy faculty of stating profound and abstruse reasonings and con- 
clusions with such clearness and felicity that the intellectual reader has no 
difficulty in following his thought and understanding the points he makes." 
— N. Y. Evangelist. 

"The work is sufficiently controversial to make it of interest to the 
general reader, it is sufficiently simple to make it of value as an academic 
text-book of reference." — Presbyterian Review. 

"No American scholar, with any philosophical tendency of thought, 
can afford to delay a careful perusal of these volumes. They present, in 
admirable form, the history of philosophy. They set forth in an enter 
taining way all the tendencies of the different philosophies, the character- 
istics and personalities of the philosophers, and the effect of national and 
social life upon the philosophies." — Journal of Education. 

^*^ A few copies of the various parts of these volumes can be supplied sep- 
arately, in paper covers. Price, 50 cents each. 



CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS, Publishers, 

^4^ and y4^ Broadway, New York. 



